EC238 Chapter Notes - Chapter 19: Municipal Solid Waste, Source Reduction
Document Summary
Chapter 19 local environmental issues: recycling, solid waste management, week 11 and land use. By reducing the rate of economic activity, or. By reducing the materials intensity of that activity. Rearranging the composition of output and consumption away from products that use relatively large amounts of materials and toward those that use less. The disposal of solid wastes has emerged as a leading problem in many cities and towns across the country. Producers pay for input costs for their products, but not for the ultimate waste disposal done by the consumers of the product. Neither producers nor consumers pay for the environmental damages released from waste-disposal sites. Total materials use can be reduced in two ways: Recycling means reaching into the waste stream to extract materials that may be reused. Two types of exchanges are of interest: that of material from producers to consumers; and that of recycled material from consumers to producers.
