Rubbish dumps throughout the industrial world
are nearly full, heralding a crisis for city authorities as they look at
alternative ways of dealing with the global garbage crisis.
That problem is peculiar to fast-moving, wealthy societies, which increasingly
demand more packaged goods. In New York State alone, residents have doubled
their demand for packaged goods in the past thirty years. And the situation is
not expected to ease, not least because of social trends. As more women transfer
their production and management skills to commercial enterprises, demand for
convenience products in the home continues to grow, says a report published by
the Washington-based World Watch Institute. The only solution
for a nation which now spends more on wrapping food than it pays farmers to
produce it, is recycling on a grand scale for commercial as well as conservation
reasons. The Institute wants multi-layered dustbins to
be distributed to households, and people to be obliged to separate their waste
into four categories: organic, glass and metals; paper; plastics and
miscellaneous. It also believes it can only be a matter of time before such bins
have to be made compulsory. Cynthia Pollock, the author of the
report, entitled "Mining Urban Wastes: The Potential for Recycling", points out
that "consumers and policy makers are just beginning to realize that there is
not real ’away’ for throwaway". Pollock believes that
recycling is the only alternative. "Although household wastes are usually thrown
out with little regard for their remaining value, a list of the world’s discards
would reveal a wealth of materials." And it is not just food; "Simply recovering
the print run of the Sunday edition of the New York Times would leave 75,000
trees standing and reduce the energy used per ton of paper by up to
three-quarters." Which of the following words is closest in meaning to "miscellaneous"
in paragraph 4