In 1978, as Public Reaction to the Love Canal Landfill Leak Snowballed, the Environmental Protection Agency Counted 425,000 Industrial Plants

Reading Passage Question

In 1978, as public reaction to the Love Canal landfill leak snowballed, the Environmental Protection Agency counted 425,000 industrial plants across the country jointly producing 45 million tons of toxic waste per year. Well over 50 percent of these wastes were not being disposed of according to existing public health standards. In November 1981, a ban was placed on burial of toxic wastes. This ban provided at best a stopgap to permit debate on long-term approaches to landfill regulation. At the same time, it exacerbated the problem of illicit abandonment of wastes. Unmarked barrels of toxic products, which could not be opened to determine their contents, were abandoned in deserted factories by bankrupt manufacturing firms or dropped off in empty fields by fly-by-night disposal companies, which multiplied as an indirect result of the ban.

The underlying reason for industry irresponsibility with regard to waste is economic. The Chemical Manufacturers’ Association denounced the landfill ban as unworkable and costly, while contending that even the currently permissible landfill techniques are unrealistically capital-intensive. Specifically, industry representatives claim that the EPA requires unnecessarily frequent and extensive site monitoring.

The Hazardous Waste Treatment Council, which represents companies involved in recovering, recycling, incinerating, biodegrading, evaporating, and chemically treating wastes, supports permanent landfill restrictions. The processes utilized by these companies face relatively little public opposition. Their sites tend to look from the outside like normal industrial plants, in contrast to the fenced-off "fallout zone” appearance of a landfill. Less appealing activities, such as landfarming (whereby wastes are handled in the traditional manner of horse manure—mixed with soil, aerated, and biodegraded by microorganisms) are generally located well away from cities. Most important, these processes leave no toxic end product which must be containerized and stored underground.

These procedures span a wide range of availability and cost-effectiveness. The electroplating industry, for example, produces some acidic wastes that can be neutralized by combination with everyday lime. At the opposite end of the cost-effectiveness spectrum, ion exchange chromatography provides an extremely costly, though safe, solution for other plating effluvia. Cooperative recycling, whereby a waste treatment company utilizes the wastes of one manufacturing process to neutralize those produced by another industry, has proved a great success in Germany. Its development in the United States has, unfortunately, been retarded by secrecy about product components.

Even if all known waste alternatives were operating at maximum potential, they still would not obviate the need for landfill. They would, however, provide a partial solution for the petrochemical and chemical manufacturing industries in the face of regulatory stringency.

“In 1978, as public reaction to the Love Canal landfill leak snowballed, the Environmental Protection Agency counted 425,000 industrial plants” - this is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 4 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

1. It can be inferred that the petrochemical and chemical manufacturing industries.

1. ave offered compelling arguments against EPA regulations
2. have largely relied until now on containerization and burial to dispose of toxic wastes
3. are responsible for more public health violations than other industries
4. are opposed on principle to government regulation of waste disposal
5. are more competitive and secretive about their processes than most U.S. industries

2. According to the passage, on which issue are the positions of the Chemical Manufacturers' Association and the Hazardous Waste Treatment Council opposed?

1. The viability of the EPA ban on burial of containerized waste
2. The necessity of containerization and underground storage
3. The necessity of stringent EPA landfill guidelines
4. The desirability of developing alternatives to current landfill technology
5. The feasibility of using recovery/recycling processes in the U.S.

3. The alternatives to landfill mentioned in the third and fourth paragraphs are characterized by all of the following EXCEPT that.

1. they are not a major focus of conservationist protests
2. some are not widely available in this country
3. they require secrecy about product components
4. their end products are nontoxic
5. some are unrealistically expensive

4. According to the passage, all of the following statements are true of landfills EXCEPT that.

1. they were temporarily banned in late 1981
2. the Chemical Manufacturers' Association opposes the present laws regulating them
3. they tend to present an unsightly appearance
4. their use is impeded by industrial secretiveness
5. they cannot be completely eliminated at this time