Title: Review Questions Solid Waste
2. Summarize what happened at Love Canal and the lessons learned from this environmental
problem.
3. Distinguish between solid waste and municipal solid waste. What are the major sources of
solid waste in the United States? What happens to municipal solid waste in the United States?
What are the major components of U.S. garbage?
4. List five characteristics of a high-waste society. List five examples of solid waste thrown
away in the United States.
5. Distinguish between the high-waste and low-waste approaches to solid waste management.
What are the four R’s of waste reduction?
6. According to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, what should be the five goals of solid
waste management in order of their importance? According to some scientists, what
percentage of solid and hazardous waste produced could be eliminated through a combination
of waste reduction, reuse, and recycling (including composting)?
7. List six ways for society to cut waste production and promote environmental sustainability.
List eight ways you reduce your output of solid waste.
8. What is the ecoindustrial revolution based on cleaner production? Describe the resource
exchange system used in Denmark and the pollution prevention program implemented by the
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) company in the United States.
9. What is a service flow economy? What are four economic advantages of such an economy
for businesses and consumers? Describe how Ray Anderson (Individuals Matter, p. 538) is
developing a carpet tile service economy business.
10. What is reuse? What are three advantages of using this approach for waste reduction? List
five examples of reuse. List five ways to reuse some of the items you buy.
11. Distinguish between primary and secondary recycling. What are the major environmental
benefits of recycling? About what percentage of the municipal solid waste produced in the
United States is recycled and composted? What percentage do experts believe could be
recycled and composted? What is compost, and how is it used as a way to deal with solid
waste?
12. Distinguish between the centralized recycling of mixed solid waste and consumer
separation of solid waste. List the advantages and disadvantages of each approach to
recycling.
13. Describe how paper is recycled. Distinguish between preconsumer and postconsumer paper
waste.
14. What are plastics made from? List three reasons why so few plastics are recycled.
15. List the advantages and disadvantages of recycling. What is life-cycle analysis? What three
factors hinder recycling and reuse? List four ways to encourage more recycling and reuse.
16. Describe the major components of a mass-burn incinerator. List the advantages and
disadvantages of burning solid (and hazardous waste) in incinerators.
17. Describe the major components of a sanitary landfill. List the advantages and
disadvantages of burying solid waste in sanitary landfills.
18. What is hazardous waste? What percentage of the hazardous waste produced in the United States is
regulated by laws?
19. How safe are U.S. chemical plants from terrorist attacks?
20. Describe the release of toxic chemicals from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India.
21. According to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, what should be the three goals of hazardous waste
management in order of their importance?
22. Describe Denmark’s hazardous waste detoxification program.
23. Distinguish between bioremediation and phytoremediation. Describe four types of phythoremediation.
List the advantages and disadvantages of using phyoremediation for detoxifying hazardous waste.
24. List the advantages and disadvantages of using a plasma torch to detoxify hazardous waste.
25. List the advantages and disadvantages of storing hazardous wastes in (a) deep underground wells and
(b) surface impoundments.
26. List three ways to reduce your input of hazardous waste into the environment.
27. What are brownfields, and what has been done to help redevelop such sites in the United States?
28. Describe the hazards of lead exposure, and list six ways to prevent and seven ways to control lead
poisoning of children.
29. Describe the hazards of mercury exposure. List five ways to prevent and four ways to control inputs of
mercury into the environment from human sources.
30.What are dioxins? How are they produced and what harm can they cause? What are two ways to reduce
exposure to these hazardous chemicals?
31. How is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act used to deal with the problem of hazardous wastes
in the United States?
32. What is the Superfund Act? Describe the controversy over whether polluters or taxpayers should pay for
cleaning up Superfund sites.