Passage Two 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