Garbage - Modern Marvels

1. How does the cost of incineration, landfill, and waste-to-energy (WTE) compare?

2. How does the trash production of a typical American compare with that of a typical Indian?

3. How does a waste-to-energy facility produce electricity?

4. How is methane removed from landfills?

5. What began the trash problem in human history?

6. In 1896, how did New York sanitation director George Warring revolutionize garbage collection?

7. What happened in 1918 to begin the practice of dumping trash in the ocean?

8. When was this practice banned?

9. How is the huge problem of garbage production in New York city solved in some parts of the city?

10. What resulted in the British invention of the incinerator?

11. Why did the concept not catch on in North America?

12. What effect did World War II have on recycling?

13. Who started the concept of the sanitary landfill?

14. What happened to packaging consumption between 1958 and 1976?

15. What was the largest landfill in the U.S. until it closed in 2001?

16. What is the single material found in the largest quantity in landfills?

17. Why is this fact unusual?

18. What lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. in the 1970s?

19. Explain the effect of oil prices on the way trash is handled.

20. Why will landfills not disappear soon?

21. What was the original expectation for nuclear power?

22. What are the two major problems with radioactive waste storage?

23. How much trash is orbiting the planet?

24. What is the main obstacle to recycling?

25. What two factors are beginning to make recycling popular again?

26. What is surprising about the "modern" technologies like incineration and recycling?