Environment · Municipal Solid Waste Management
The concept being tested: Plastic content in consumer products and waste sources.
Consider the following: I. Cigarette butts II. Eyeglass lenses III. Car tyres How many of them contain plastic?
All three items contain plastic once you look past their everyday appearance. Cigarette filters are made almost entirely of cellulose acetate tow, a semi-synthetic plastic that takes years to break down, which is why cigarette butts are consistently ranked the single most littered plastic item on Earth in global beach-cleanup audits. Eyeglass lenses were traditionally glass, but the overwhelming majority sold today use plastic polymers such as CR-39, polycarbonate or high-index plastic because they are lighter and shatter-resistant. Car tyres combine natural rubber with synthetic rubber compounds like styrene-butadiene rubber, which are petrochemical polymers chemically akin to plastic; tyre wear is now recognised as one of the largest sources of microplastics entering soil and water. Because each of the three carries a genuine plastic component, the only option that fits the evidence is the one covering all three, not one or two of them.
What UPSC was testing
UPSC is testing awareness of everyday objects whose plastic content is not obvious from appearance, a favourite trap format that pairs an all-or-nothing option set with items people assume are glass or rubber rather than plastic.
How often this comes up
This concept has appeared 8 times in UPSC Prelims General Studies Paper I between 2015 and 2025 — in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024 and 2025.
The option-by-option autopsy for this question — why each of the other three is wrong, and which neighbouring concept each one was built from — is in the app.
Other past-year questions touching Municipal Solid Waste Management.