Environmental Science 19
What percentage of the energy needed to make aluminum cans from ore is needed to make recycled aluminum cans from used aluminum cans?
5 percent
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), what percentage of the approved or proposed Superfund sites have been cleaned up?
75 out of 1,200
Which of the following is a true statement about recycling?
After they are collected, recyclable materials are cleaned and processed.
Which of the following correctly describes biodegradable plastics?
All of these
Which of the following correctly describes the disposal of waste by composting?
Composting could reduce the amount of waste that restaurants, food-processing plants, and animal feedlots send to landfills.
Which of the following is not a requirement for a landfill built today?
It must be a specified distance from a city or other populated area.
According to the text, what is the most helpful thing that a consumer can do to make sure that more materials are recycled?
Make an effort to buy products made from recycled materials whenever possible.
Which of the following statements does not describe a problem associated with modern landfills.
Materials buried in landfills decompose in three years.
An example of something that is biodegradable is
a leaf in a compost pile.
From 1970 to the present, the percentage of waste that is recycled has
increased from 6.6 percent to 28 percent.
A material is biodegradable if
it can be broken down by biological processes.
Which of the following are problems associated with landfills?
leachate and methane production
Which of the following produces the most solid waste?
manufacturing
The methane found in landfills is a gas that
may be captured and used to produce energy.
Making products from recycled materials
often saves energy and other resources during the manufacturing process.
The main problem with so-called biodegradable plastic is that
only its organic portion actually decomposes.
Which items make up the largest percentage of waste produced by households and businesses?
paper products
Which of the following is not considered hazardous waste?
rotting meat and other food waste
Some hazardous waste is disposed of by deep-well injection. This procedure
stores wastes in layers of dry rock below the water table.
Under the Superfund Act,
the EPA may sue companies that dump hazardous waste illegally.
Which regulation requires producers of hazardous wastes to document how their wastes are handled?
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
An example of source reduction is
using canvas shopping bags.
Which of the following is not a method of reducing hazardous waste? a. b. burning toxic substances in specially designed incinerators c. using nontoxic beads instead of solvents to clean metal parts d. All of the above
allowing fungi to break down petroleum sludge
A common characteristic of all hazardous waste land-disposal facilities is that they
are long-term storage sites.
The process of composting
could effectively handle a variety of wastes.
