Question

Americans are recycling about 61.9% of all yard trimmings. What amount of yard trimmings did the average American recycle per day in 2005? (Use the information in Exercise 14.) here is #14 In 2005, the average American generated 4.5 lb of waste per day. How much of that was paper and cardboard? yard trimmings 13.1% , paper and cardboard is 34.2%... my teacher says : first find 13.1% of the given total 4.5;then find 61.9% of that number for the answer but im not understanding it.

Answer 1

The yard trimmings before recycling are part of the daily waste that an American produces

Answer 2

So first we have to find how much of the total waste is equal to the yard trimmings.

Answer 3

Do you see what part this is in the procedure that your teacher provided?

Answer 4

i got a big graph?

Answer 5

you shouldn't need a graph for this part.

Answer 6

she wrote me back said first find 13.1% of the given total 4.5; then find 61.9% of that number for the answer .. i meant i got a chart

Answer 7

So let's do those calculations

Answer 8

The first part is simply
13.1%*4.5lb = 0.131 * 4.5
do you understand why we are doing this?

Answer 9

not really sorry

Answer 10

i will try to explain again. Of the total waste that a person produces, we know that 13.1 % of that waster is yard trimmings.

Answer 11

The total amt of waste is 4.5 lb/day

Answer 12

correct

Answer 13

Therefore to calculate the amt of yard trimmings produced each day we have to take 13.1 % of the 4.5 lb/day

Answer 14

does that make any sense?

Answer 15

yea

Answer 16

alright so this calculation 0.131*4.5 will give us the yard trimmings per day
0.131*4.5=0.5895 lbs of yard trimmings per day

Answer 17

Following?

Answer 18

yea cool

Answer 19

alright, so this question asks us to find out how many yard trimmings are being recycled per day.

Answer 20

We already know...

Answer 21

Amount of yard trimmings produced each day = 0.5895 lb/day
Percentage of yard trimmings that are recycled = 61.9%

Answer 22

can you write the equation that will give us our final answer?

Answer 23

how would i do that?

Answer 24

by doing the 2nd thing that your teacher say to do.

Answer 25

would i divide the two or ? thats what i have trouble with

Answer 26

i don't know where this division by two is coming from.
However all we are doing is taking 61.9% of the first number we found (0.5895 lb/day)

Answer 27

so i subtract

Answer 28

no, when we take % of a number we multiply

Answer 29

50%*100 cents = 0.5*100 = 50 cents
25% of 1 hour = 25% * 60 minutes = 0.25* 60 minutes = 15 minutes

Answer 30

so i 61.9% x05895?

Answer 31

yup

Answer 32

61.9%*0.05895

Answer 33

oops

Answer 34

61.9%*0.5895

Answer 35

36.49?

Answer 36

not quite, before we multiply we need to change the percentage into a decimal. This is done by dividing the percentage by 100
75% = 75/100 = 0.75

25% = 25/100 = 0.25

30% =30/100 = 0.3

Answer 37

so you would divide 61.9 by 100 and then multiply this number by 0.5895

Answer 38

0.364

Answer 39

yup, and this makes more sense since our answer should be smaller than 4.5

Answer 40

and smaller than 0.5895

Answer 41

smaller than 4.5 would be my answer?

Answer 42

0.364 should be the answer, the units are lb/day

Answer 43

wow cool thanks for taking your time to helping me understand it better and working with me

Answer 44

of course, enjoy your day!

Answer 45

yoou do the same