43 The following appeared in a memorandum written by the chairperson of the West Egg Town Council Two years ago consultants predicted that West Egg s landfill which is used for garbage disposal would be completely filled within five years During the past

In this memo, the chairperson of the West Egg Town Council asserts that the available space of landfill would last for longer than predicted five years, for the reasons that the residents have recycled more materials during the past two years, as well as the charges for other garbage will double in the next mouth. Although this argument seems plausible at the first glance, a close scrutiny reveals its untenability.

In the first place, the author claims that during past two years, recycled materials are as twice as they did in previous years. The author neglects a strong possibility that more recycling mateirals are due to a larger amount of garbage, which means it is probable that more other garbage might be landfilled. If the amount of other garbage exceeds the predicted, the landfill would be filled much faster than predicted.

Secondly, even though the charge of other household garbage will double, it may attribute little to decrease the speed of filling the landfill. On the one hand, since whether the other household garbage is the major source of other garbage is unknown, the author cannot guarantee the amount of other garbage would decrease. If the other factory garbage is the most important part of other garbage, charging more money for other household garbage is useless to reduce the other garbage. On the other hand, the council may face more potential problems if they charge more money for other household garbage. Perhaps the residents do not care the more charge of garbage so that the amount of recycled materials would not increase. Or perhaps, to avoid expansive garbage charge, some residents put the other garbage in the recycled garbage bins. The council would hire workers to pick out these garbage. Thus charging more money for household garbage is unjustifiable.

Finally, the statistics of recent survey is vague and unconvincing. The survey cannot be seen as representative if most respondents are the people who are more willing to protect environment. Furthermore, even assume those repondents are representative, whether they would do more recycling is unknown. Maybe they have recycled garbage as much as they can, it is hard for them to recycle more. Hence this survey cannot predict that most residents would recycle more garbage in the future.

In conclusion, the author fails to prove that the available space of landfill would last for a longer time, at least bases on this memo. To make the argument more persuasive, the chairperson should provide more information about the amount of garbage landfilled during the past two years. More statistics about the ratio of other household garbage to other garbage and specific condition of recycled garbage is also appreciated.