(A) Activity- Dig a ground to 15cms depth and bury a paper and a polythene bag into it and cover it with earth. After a month or so, remove the soil from the buried area. You’ll find that the piece of paper had reduced in size because of being eaten up by the bacteria whereas the polythene bag remained as it is. The micro-organisms or the decomposers in the soil have decomposed paper. But, because the polythene bag remained as it was, it means that micro-organisms could not decompose/degrade the polythene bag.

This activity shows that paper is biodegradables and plastic is non-biodegradable.