3.2.3.6 Urban waste and its disposal Quiz: AQA Geography, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. Which source is a major contributor to urban physical waste generation?

   • Wild animal populations in urban parks
   • Natural weathering of bedrock
   • Industrial and commercial activity
   • Rural farming on the city edge

2. Which disposal approach involves burning waste to generate energy and reduce its volume?

   • Unregulated dumping on open land
   • Landfill burial with methane capture only
   • Incineration with energy recovery
   • Submergence in deep ocean waters

3. Landfill sites can produce which environmental problems?

   • Acid rain from carbon dioxide released by the waste
   • Leachate contaminating groundwater and methane released from decomposing organic waste
   • Stratospheric ozone depletion from waste heat
   • Coral bleaching caused by freshwater runoff

4. Which waste disposal method reduces the volume of waste most, but produces air emissions that require controls?

   • Incineration
   • Landfill burial
   • Submergence
   • Unregulated dumping

5. Which argument best supports recycling over landfill in a specified urban area?

   • Recycling produces more waste than landfill for the same materials
   • Recycling always costs more to the environment than burial
   • Recycling has no effect on the demand for raw materials
   • Recycling recovers materials and reduces the volume going to landfill, lowering methane and leachate risk

6. A city's waste stream is dominated by packaging and food waste. Which approach would most directly reduce the proportion of organic waste sent to landfill?

   • Separate food waste collection and composting or anaerobic digestion
   • Burn all waste without separation to remove odours
   • Increase unregulated dumping of food scraps near rivers
   • Send all food waste to submergence sites offshore

7. Which factor most influences the composition of urban waste streams?

   • The economic characteristics, lifestyles and purchasing habits of residents
   • The number of trees along the main roads
   • The distance from the city to the nearest mountain
   • The average height of buildings in the city

8. Which combination describes the main environmental impacts of unregulated waste disposal?

   • Pollution of land, water and air, and increased health risks to nearby residents
   • Improved soil fertility and cleaner rivers
   • Reduced emissions and no risk to health
   • Better groundwater quality because waste is dispersed

9. Which statement about comparing incineration and landfill is most accurate for an urban area?

   • Landfill always has lower environmental impact than incineration in every setting, since burial removes waste from the cycle completely
   • Incineration produces no emissions at all if the plant is well run, because modern furnaces capture every gas and particle they produce
   • Landfill and incineration have identical environmental effects in all urban areas, because both disposal routes release the same pollutants
   • Incineration cuts waste volume but needs emission controls, while landfill risks leachate and methane but needs less immediate processing

10. A city with limited land for landfill is considering waste options. Which factor makes incineration more attractive?

    • A policy requiring all waste to be sent to rivers, with dumping in watercourses treated as the approved disposal route for each district
    • Zero costs for emissions control at incinerators, because every plant meets pollution limits without any filters or monitoring equipment
    • Abundant cheap land for landfill near the city, which keeps burial costs low and makes disposal sites easy to expand each year
    • Shortage of suitable landfill sites and the ability to recover energy from waste

11. Which waste disposal method is most likely to cause marine pollution in a coastal city?

    • Controlled landfill with lining
    • Recycling of paper and card
    • Submergence of waste at sea
    • Composting of garden waste

12. Which measure best indicates the effectiveness of an urban recycling programme?

    • The proportion of household waste diverted from landfill and reprocessed
    • The number of recycling bins placed in the city's parks and public squares, counted each year to show public awareness of the scheme
    • The number of rainy days each year in the city, which affects how often residents separate their recycling at home for collection
    • The total weight of waste produced by a single factory in a given month, which shows how much industrial output the city generated

13. Which argument best evaluates the view that exporting waste is a sustainable solution for a city?

    • It always reduces global waste because exported material is recycled overseas to the same standard as the domestic system
    • It removes all environmental impacts because the waste leaves the city, so the receiving area carries no burden at any point in time
    • It has no environmental effects because export is regulated everywhere to the same standard as domestic disposal in every country
    • It moves the problem elsewhere and can create pollution and poor working conditions in the receiving area

14. A city produces 400,000 tonnes of waste a year, and 120,000 tonnes are recycled. What percentage of waste is recycled?

    • 30%
    • 12%
    • 40%
    • 33%

15. Which feature of landfill management would most reduce leachate contamination?

    • Open dumping close to a river channel, with waste left at the edge of the water so that runoff reaches the stream each time it rains
    • Leaving waste uncovered to speed decomposition, with no cover or capping placed over the tipped material at any stage of the process
    • A lined base with leachate collection and treatment
    • Unlined pits dug directly into permeable chalk, where waste sits in open ground and water flows freely through the base into aquifers

16. Which change would most likely reduce methane emissions from urban waste?

    • Burying more food waste in unlined landfill sites, keeping the organic material in place with no sealing or gas control of any kind
    • Leaving organic waste exposed in open dumps, where it decomposes at the surface and releases gas into the air across the whole site
    • Diverting organic waste from landfill to composting or anaerobic digestion with gas capture
    • Increasing the depth of unlined landfill with no gas capture, so that organic matter decomposes deeper in the tip without being recovered

17. Which argument best supports the use of waste hierarchy approaches in urban planning?

    • Burial should always be the first option because it is cheapest, and treatment or reuse can follow only if burial proves impossible
    • Waste should be exported before any reuse or recycling is considered, since shipping it abroad is the quickest way to clear bins
    • Prevention and reuse reduce the amount of waste needing any disposal, which is better than treatment or burial
    • Prevention has no benefit because waste cannot be reduced in any real sense, so the hierarchy of options has no practical value at all

18. Which trend would most likely show a city moving towards sustainable waste management?

    • Increasing submergence and reduced energy recovery, with more material sent to sea each year and less energy recovered from the stream
    • Rising landfill tonnage with stable recycling rates, which shows that the same volume of waste continues to be buried each year
    • Growing unregulated dumping and falling recovery, with more waste tipped on open land each year and less of it recovered from the stream
    • Falling landfill tonnage alongside rising recycling and recovery rates

19. A city is comparing incineration and landfill for a set of waste streams. Which measure would best allow a fair comparison of their environmental impacts?

    • Comparing only the cost per tonne of the cheapest option, ranking disposal routes by price alone without measuring environmental effects
    • Measuring the average rainfall over the landfill site across several years, which indicates how much water enters the tip each winter
    • Counting the number of trucks used on a single day to collect waste, which shows how busy the collection routes were during that week
    • A lifecycle assessment covering emissions, leachate, energy recovery and land use

20. Which category of urban waste is most typically generated by commercial and building activity?

    • Household food waste collected from kerbside bins each week, which is the largest share of waste collected from residential streets
    • Garden green waste from private gardens collected each autumn, which is composted in local sites and returned to the community
    • Construction and demolition waste such as rubble, timber and concrete
    • Hazardous waste from hospital operating theatres, which is collected in sealed containers and treated at specialist incinerators

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