The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper in Masontown:"If we want to save money on municipal garbage disposal fees, we need to encourage our residents to recycle more. Late last year, our neighboring town, Hayesworth, passed a

In this argument, the author states that in the town of Masontown, there has been huge costs on municipal garbage disposal which can be reduced if the residents of the the locality start recyling the paper and glass. He is citing neigbhouring town, Hayesworth as the evidence. He is rooting for an advertising campaign to encourage the residents to recyle and thus save money on disposal of the town's waste. At first look, this recommendation looks plausible and convincing but looking closely, it is rife with holes and unstated assumptions. There are several questions that need to be answered before undertaking and considering this recommendation.

Firstly, the author did not state where most of the expenses are going in garbage disposal? Is there some way to minimize the costs and expenditures that are incurred in the garbage disposal process? Maybe the municipality can reduce the number of workers it has or it can use other means of disposing the garbage, like making a nearby garbage facilty to dispose of paper and other wastes which can be burned easily.

Secondly the author claims that recycling the paper and glass will save the town some garbage disposal money. He is citing near-by town of Hayesworth as the example which did the same. But before following the same strategy we need to know the percentage of glass and paper waste in the total garbage. Is that significant? If yes, then its better to recyle these wastages which will reduce disposal cost and at the same time, recycling will be environment friendly. Additionally, the population, demography, eating habits, living style etc of both the towns should be compared in order to use the same strategy to reduce the disposal costs. Also, we need to analyze if all the saving that the town of Hayesworth is getting is only because of the recycling method that they have employed for glass and paper and not because of anything else. Furthermore, the town of Hayesworth has this method passed as law wherein if someone defaults and fails to follow it, he will have to pay a fine. If this fine is significant, it will force the residents to follow the law.

Thirdly, we need to find out how much expense does the town need to bear for the adverting campaign compared to total savings, if its huge, the town may not be able to fund it. In that case, we need to investigate it further and come up with some other way to promulgate the idea of recycling. Additionally, mere the idea of having an adverting campaign may not reduce the paper and glass waste, the municipality may need to pass it as a law as the town of Hayesworth did. It will be stringent on the people of the Masontown to follow the law if the fine on defaulters is good enough.

In the conclusion, before giving a deep thought to author's recommendation, the municipality needs answers to several questions- any alternate ways to dispose of the garbage, the composition of garbage, savings as result of recycling paper and glass waste, demographic and living style comparison of the two towns with some solid data etc. If the author is able to resolve these questions, his recommendation looks very promising and may help the Masontown to minimize its costs of garbage disposal.