Deck 15: Waste Management and Geology

Question 1

What is the disposal approach used in sanitary landfills?

A) dilution
B) thin spreading
C) incineration
D) isolation
E) attenuation

Answer 1

isolation

Question 2

What is contaminated water that drains out of a solid waste disposal site called?

A) hazardous waste
B) leachate
C) sewage effluent
D) artesian water
E) hydroponic fluid

Answer 2

leachate

Question 3

Why is the dump-and-cover approach used in sanitary landfills called the "cell"method?

A) because, if it is misused, you will be thrown in jail
B) because it handles chemical reactions in the fill at the cellular level
C) because it isolates waste in cell-like compartments
D) because the pattern of dumping is circular
E) because of the way the waste is attenuated

Answer 3

because it isolates waste in cell-like compartments

Question 4

Which waste group includes household garbage?

A) Group 1
B) Group 2
C) Group 3
D) Group 4
E) Group 5

Question 5

Which waste group poses the greatest threat to groundwater resources?

A) Group 1
B) Group 2
C) Group 3
D) Group 4
E) Group 5

Question 6

Which of the following is the most often recycled plastic?

A) PET
B) HDPE
C) PVC
D) LDPE
E) Styrofoam

Question 7

Which of the following states has the high percentage of recycling?

A) California
B) Texas
C) New Jersey
D) Minnesota
E) Vermont

Question 8

What is the greatest contributor to total U.S. solid waste?

A) agriculture
B) mining and milling
C) industrial
D) municipal
E) utility

Question 9

Which of the following has the highest recycling rate?

A) paper
B) glass bottles
C) Aluminum cans
D) car batteries
E) yard trimmings

Question 10

Which state has the greatest number of superfund sites?

A) New York
B) California
C) Pennsylvania
D) New Jersey
E) Michigan

Question 11

How long must a high-level nuclear waste facility be able to provide safe isolation?

A) 25 years
B) 250 years
C) 2,500 years
D) 25,000 years
E) 250,000 years

Question 12

What do New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California have in common?

A) All have state of the art recycling programs.
B) All have over 90 superfund sites.
C) All have deep injection nuclear waste disposal.
D) All were considered for potential high-level nuclear waste repositories.
E) All are states where large-scale "sludge ranches" are located.

Question 13

Which solution listed below has not been considered, at one time or another, for the handling of high-level nuclear waste?

A) Continue the present tank storage.
B) Put it into a convergent plate boundary
C) Put it in containers on the Arctic ice shelf
D) Put it into a salt mine or dome.
E) Put it is deep chambers in granite

Question 14

Dry cleaners, printers, gas stations, and septic tanks undergoing chemical cleaning are all considered sources of what kind of contaminant?

A) sinking
B) soluble
C) floating
D) reactive
E) conservative

Question 15

Which of the following statements about leachate is false?

A) Leachate is also known as garbage juice with a moderately uniform composition.
B) Leachate should be considered dangerous to the environment until established otherwise.
C) Contaminant plumes of leachate can extend up to kilometers from their source.
D) The size and shape of leachate contaminant plumes are related to groundwater flow velocity.
E) Leachates are classified based on the chemical reactivity and/or density of the leachate.

Question 16

Judge the following sentence according to the criteria given below: Composting can lead to a significant reduction in a community's landfill needs BECAUSE yard wastes are second only (percentage basis) to paper in urban solid waste.

A) The assertion and the reason are both correct, and the reason is valid.
B) The assertion and the reason are both correct, but the reason is invalid.
C) The assertion is correct, but the reason is incorrect.
D) The assertion is incorrect, but the reason is correct.
E) Both the assertion and the reason are incorrect.

Question 17

On average, around how much municipal solid waste do Americans recycle?

A) three-fourths
B) two-thirds
C) one-half
D) one-third
E) one-fourth

Question 18

How was low-level nuclear waste disposed of prior to 1970?

A) sanitary landfills
B) on-site incineration
C) recycled into nuclear fuel
D) added to cement
E) dumped in the ocean

Question 19

The EPA's original 10,000-year radiation dosage standard for a nuclear repository was changed to how many years?

A) 1,000 years
B) 100,000 years
C) 1,000,000 years
D) 10,000,000 years
E) It was not changed. It is still 10,000 years.

Question 20

Recycling which of the following produces an energy savings of 96% versus processing it from metallic ore?

A) Aluminum
B) Steel
C) Copper
D) Glass
E) Plastic

Question 21

On average, each person in the U.S. produces between 4 and 5 pounds of trash every day.

Question 22

Municipal solid waste makes up 96% of the solid waste generated in the U.S.

Question 23

Class III landfills provide the highest level of protection to underground water.

Question 24

Organic matter decomposes more slowly in warm, wet climates than in cold, dry ones.

Question 25

The current best practice for remediating contaminated aquifers is to pump and treat the groundwater.

Question 26

Between 2002 and 2008, the number of curbside recycling programs have grown enormously.

Question 27

Septic systems confine solid waste within a leach field.

Question 28

Finding and approving a site for safe disposal of high-level nuclear waste is the biggest deterrent to the further development of nuclear energy in the U.S.

Question 29

Cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site in the state of Washington will cost an estimated 57 billion dollars, making it the most expensive environmental cleanup in world history.

Question 30

High-level nuclear waste is presently stored in water-filled pools at each nuclear reactor site.

Question 31

Marsh gas is another name for biogenic methane.

Question 32

Methane gas explosions can only occur when methane is present in air at concentrations greater than 50%.

Question 33

Philadelphia operates trash incinerators but lacks landfills for isolating the ash.

Question 34

Concrete and asphalt are Group 1 waste materials.

Question 35

The amount of trash that a country produces per unit of land area is just as important as the overall amount.

Question 36

A waste-disposal site's ability to isolate waste is almost entirely determined by its hydrologic and geologic conditions.

Question 37

Compaction at landfills is the only proven way to significantly reduce the volume of municipal solid waste.

Question 38

In the 1950s, low-level nuclear waste was loaded into 55-gallon drums and dumped in the ocean.

Question 39

One of the reasons Yucca Mountain was taken "off the table"as the nation's nuclear waste repository is that the volcanic rocks proved to be younger than originally thought.

Question 40

The U.S. already has at least one underground storage site for transuranic waste.

Question 41

What is the main concern of legislation such as RCRA that is embodied in the approach used in sanitary landfills?

Question 42

How does settlement in a landfill potentially pose a threat to ground and surface water resources?

Question 43

Can there be more than one classification of landfill within the boundaries of one landfill site? Explain why or why not?

Question 44

What is typically monitored at a landfill?

Question 45

How does high-level nuclear waste differ from other kinds of hazardous waste?

Question 46

What happened when chemical waste was disposed of by deep injection at the Army's Rocky Mountain Arsenal?

Question 47

What happened at Love Canal, New York, in the 1970s that spurred Congress to enact CECLA?

Question 48

Suppose someone suggested launching radioactive waste into space. What would be the potential drawbacks of this approach apart from cost considerations?

Question 49

What is the best use for reclaimed landfills and why?