Until we can achieve truly sustainable closed-loop systems, our activities will continue to generate large amounts of municipal solid waste, industrial solid waste, and hazardous waste. Excessive waste generation results from several causes and exerts various impacts on human health and ecological systems. Fortunately, there are many steps we can take to reduce our generation of waste.

The following answers for the Causes and Consequences features are examples and are not intended to represent a comprehensive list. In addition, the sequence of items is not meant to connote relative importance.

Sort the examples below into the appropriate bin.