Just to follow up a little to my conclusions at the end of my solution to the first Moody question, the prediction for plastic wastes landfilled in 100 years. In my opinion, there will certainly be technology breakthroughs in the next 100 years to solve the waste problem. For instance, the SpaceX corporation, founded by Elon Musk, is working on recyclable rockets. Continue reading
This week I wrapped up my solution for question 1 in last year’s Moody’s Math Challenge with some more thoughts coming up and more time writing them down. Just as a reminder I will repost the question 1 below:
How big is the problem? Create a model for the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills in the United States. Predict the production rate of plastic waste over time and predict the amount of plastic waste present in landfills 10 years from today.
As I mentioned in earlier blog post, I have shifted my focus to using the idea of American population growth and the amount of plastic waste landfilled per capita. To me, it is the idea of involving amount per capita that is the key to my thoughts in this question. It is common sense to me that everywhere people around us are discarding approximately the same amount of plastic everyday. Therefore, it is reasonable to calculate out the amount of plastic waste landfilled per capita in recent years and to create a model according to the trend that data shows.
Independent Seminar Blog 