Since City X reduced the frequency with which its service vehicles pic

Question

Since City X reduced the frequency with which its service vehicles pick up recyclable materials from residences for transport to its recycling center, the volume of material that its service vehicles transport to landfills for permanent disposal has increased to unmanageable levels. However, the city cannot increase the frequency of either its trash pickup or its recycling pickup at city residences.

Based only the information above, which of the following strategies seems most appropriate for City X in the interest of reducing the volume of material that the city’s service vehicles transport to landfills?

(A) Provide larger recycling containers to the residents of the city

(B) Establish a community program to increase awareness of the benefits of recycling

(C) Establish additional recycling centers as near as possible to the city’s residential areas

(D) Provide incentives to the city’s residents to reuse, rather than discard for pickup by the city’s service vehicles, whatever they can

(E) Ease restrictions on the types of materials the city’s service vehicles will pick up for transport to its recycling center

Source:  Master GMAT

Abcrafto · Answer

IMO Option E
If the types of material consider for recycling are lowered then the volume of trash that goes to recycle center will be reduced.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Official Explanation

Regardless of the reason for the increase in the volume of material transported to landfills, reducing the volume of material available for transport to landfills would serve the stated objective.  Choice (D)  suggests a plan of action that, if successful, would help.

The correct answer is (D).

Saasingh · Answer

Answer = D.

The reason permanent disposal volume has increased is because of reduced pickup services. Therefore, that's the problem that needs to be tackled.

(A) Provide larger recycling containers to the residents of the city.

Size of recycling containers is not the issue at hand. The issue is that people are discarding items if pickup for recycling isnt available. This doesn't address the problem.
WRONG.

(B) Establish a community program to increase awareness of the benefits of recycling

Doesn't help. What good would bringing awareness do ? People who wont recycle due to lack of pickup wont. This is too mild a reason. What if even after awareness programs people are like Naaah, I aint going to drop the recycle. You come at my house to collect or I'm gonna discard.
WRONG.

(C) Establish additional recycling centers as near as possible to the city’s residential areas

This is tricky. Between C and D. But notice, AS NEAR AS POSSIBLE. But, how do we define that ? It could be 200 miles for that matter. This doesn't necessarily mean that it would be "walking near". They might still need pickup?
Not bullet proof.

WRONG.

(D) Provide incentives to the city’s residents to reuse, rather than discard for pickup by the city’s service vehicles, whatever they can

This is the CORRECT choice. We are giving a reason to these residents to go out of their way and recycle by giving them money. Now they have a reason to go the extra mile and do as the authorities want.

(E) Ease restrictions on the types of materials the city’s service vehicles will pick up for transport to its recycling center.

Again, restrictions were never the problem. Problem was people want PICKUP at their door step.
WRONG.

Hope it helps someone. Need good wishes for my GMAT attempt in August

Regards,
Saakhi

Regards, Saakhi

JuniqueLid · Answer

Personally think this is a very low quality question as all the possible answer options have flaws. Specifically:

(A) Provide larger recycling containers to the residents of the city.  >> Recycling container size may not be the root cause - people may be incentivised to get rid of rubbish, recyclable or not, as frequent as as possible which caused more recyclable materials be dumped for landfills. Weak contender.

(B) Establish a community program to increase awareness of the benefits of recycling.  >> Awareness is not necessarily the root cause, either. People could be well-aware of the benefits and practising recycling but inconvenience caused by the reduced pickup frequency made it impractical to recycle. Weak contender.

(C) Establish additional recycling centers as near as possible to the city’s residential areas.  >> True that if more recycling centers are conveniently accessible, people may be more incentivised to drop off rather than wait for pick up. However, it can still be a hassle for people such that people don't do so. Besides, the physical feasibility of available space to place new facilities, and the possibility that the nearest facility is still 100miles away can hinder people's willingness to do dropoffs.

(D) Provide incentives to the city’s residents to reuse, rather than discard for pickup by the city’s service vehicles, whatever they can.  >> Sure, as the OA suggests, regardless of the reason for "supply" issue on the waste services side, addressing the "demand" size by reducing overall volume of disposing should help. However, what if reusable materials account for only a negligible proportion of what people dispose of - that is, people are more incentivised to reuse but they simply can't.

(E) Ease restrictions on the types of materials the city’s service vehicles will pick up for transport to its recycling center.  >> Regardless of the restrictions, the city isn't picking them up. This is unlikely to help much.

Su1206 · Answer

JuniqueLid 
I humbly disagree with you on this point.

In my opinion, a question can be called low quality only if 
X - The correct choice is reasonably flawed
Y - Incorrect choices may reasonably be considered to be correct answers

As correctly pointed by you, Choice A,B,C and E are flawed, and thus correctly, they are Incorrect!! 
Thus this question does not fall under category Y for sure.

Coming to correct answer, lets examine the choice D

(D) Provide incentives to the city’s residents to reuse, rather than discard for pickup by the city’s service vehicles, whatever they can. - The root cause of problem is scarcity of transport vehicles. Question explicitly says its not possible to increase the number of both disposal and recycle transport trucks. In such a scenario, reducing the need for disposal/ recycle is a very viable option. As D mentions this, D is the correct answer!!

Also, in your comment you have mentioned " However, what if reusable materials account for only a negligible proportion of what people dispose of - that is, people are more incentivised to reuse but they simply can't."

On GMAT, even a 0.0000001% reduction is a reduction. So even though the plan mentioned in option D may not be 'very effective', it does solve the problem a little bit, and definitely in a better manner than other choices.

Open to listen your point of view on this!!

Su1206 · Answer

Abcrafto

The problem is scarcity of transport vehicles.

Say as per current restrictions, they can carry material X and Y, 50 KG each.
If they lift restrictions, they will be able to carry material C, material y and new material Z. But still, the VOLUME they carry is max 100KG.

Thus we can say, the problem is not the type of material that need to be recycled, but the volume of material that can be transporterd.

Thus E is an incorrect choice.

I hope this helps!

JuniqueLid · Answer

Thanks Su, I'm convinced. Awesome reply and thinking process!

Since City X reduced the frequency with which its service vehicles pic

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