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Difficulty: MediumResolving Paradoxes and Discrepancies

In 2023, the city of Alton introduced a high-capacity organic waste composting program that provided all households with specialized food scrap collection bins. Municipal authorities projected a significant decrease in the total tonnage of municipal solid waste sent to local landfills. However, official waste management reports from 2025 revealed that despite a 90 percent household participation rate in the composting program, the total tonnage of municipal waste deposited in local landfills actually increased by 12 percent over the two-year period.

Which of the following, if true, help to resolve the apparent discrepancy described above? Select all that apply.

  1. Concurrently with the residential initiative, a major expansion in regional industrial manufacturing generated a massive volume of non-organic solid waste that far surpassed the tonnage of residential food scraps diverted from landfills.Answer
  2. B
    The municipal government spent significantly more money operating the new composting facility than it had originally budgeted for the program.
  3. Prior to the composting program, the vast majority of households routinely ground their food scraps in sink garbage disposals rather than placing them in standard trash bins.Answer
  4. D
    Surrounding municipalities that lacked organic composting programs also experienced an increase in landfill waste during the same two-year period.
  5. E
    The majority of residents reported that using the new food scrap bins required less effort than separating plastic and glass recyclables.

Answer

The statements explaining that an expansion in industrial manufacturing generated non-organic waste exceeding residential scrap diversion, and that households previously disposed of food scraps via sink garbage disposals rather than landfill trash bins, together resolve the discrepancy.
To resolve the paradox, an option must explain how landfill waste tonnage increased even though 90% of households diverted food scraps. The statement about expanding industrial manufacturing identifies an external waste source whose massive volume offset residential scrap diversion. The statement about household garbage disposals shows that food scraps were previously washed down sinks rather than put in landfill trash, meaning their diversion did not reduce landfill volume. Both statements allow both facts to be true.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the two contradictory facts in the passage.
Fact 1: 90% of households participated in diverting food scraps into composting bins.
Fact 2: Total tonnage of municipal solid waste sent to landfills increased by 12% rather than decreasing.
Resolving a paradox requires finding statements that allow both facts to remain true simultaneously.
2
Evaluate statements to see which provide a viable mechanism for landfill waste increasing despite high residential food scrap diversion.
The statement regarding industrial manufacturing introduces a separate, non-residential waste stream that grew enough to outweigh food scrap diversion. The statement regarding sink garbage disposals reveals that diverted food scraps were never in the landfill waste stream to begin with.
Both statements account for why landfill waste tonnage rose without denying high residential participation in composting.
3
Eliminate choices that fail to resolve the paradox.
Statements about operating budgets, parallel regional trends, and resident convenience ratings do not explain why landfill waste volume increased.
Distractors bring in out-of-scope details, correlate regional trends without causal explanation, or make unwarranted assumptions.

Key Concept

Resolving Paradoxes and Discrepancies
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Topics

Resolving Paradoxes and Discrepancies

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