Alternatives - Other ways of dealing with a situation or problem.

Biodegradable - Capable of being broken down by air, water and bacteria.

Closed-Loop Recycling - The act of collecting, remaking and purchasing the remade material which can be used and re-collected again.

Compost - Partially decomposed organic matter.

Consumer - A person who buys or purchases items.

Contaminant - An item that is not recyclable located in a load of recyclables often making the load unable to be recycled.

Dump - Location where garbage is taken and just dumped; not to be confused with a sanitary landfill where garbage is processed properly.

Ecology - Interrelationships between organisms and their environment.

Environment - The conditions under which an organism lives.

Enviroshopping - An educational program to teach people how to make wiser shopping decisions resulting in less trash being produced.

Garbage - A used material people no longer want.

Groundwater - Water stored deep underground that most people depend on for their drinking water.

Hazardous Material - An item that is harmful to the environment.

Illegal Dumping - Disposing of trash in an improper manner that is against the law.

Landfill - A large, outdoor area for waste disposal.

Litter - Garbage disposed of incorrectly.

Market - A place or organization to take collected recyclables; which in turn are transported to a plant or facility to be reprocessed; sometimes the market is the plant or facility, sometimes it is a middle man.

Mining Trash - The process of digging up buried trash to collect the recyclables and/or to burn the trash in a waste-to-energy plant.

Natural Resources - Materials or energy from the environment used for human needs.

Over-Packaging - Unnecessary extra packaging.

Packaging - The wrapping used to enclose a product.

Plastics - A large number of different compounds made from oil/petroleum products.

Pollute - To make impure.

Precycling - Reducing the amount of trash before it is produced.

Recycling - Reprocessing a material to make a new product; the product may be the same as before recycling or a totally different product.

Reuse - To use something again in its original form for the same or different purpose.

Sanitary Landfill - A place where garbage is taken and buried under controlled conditions; monitored by state and federal regulations.

Solid Waste - Garbage or trash.

Solid Waste Management - Everything that must be done to handle the trash produced in a community.

Waste Disposal - Getting rid of trash or garbage.

Waste Reduction - Reducing the amount of trash produced.

Waste Stream - The total trash produced by a community.

Waste-To-Energy Plant - A facility that burns trash, collects the energy, turns it into steam or electricity and uses or sells it.

To teach about an issue, you need to know the basic facts about it. Quick and Dirty Fact Sheets were created by the Environmental Education Fellow Project to give teachers a quick background on waste management issues. They are written to give a basic understanding of the issue and do not include all information available on the topic. For in depth study of one of these issues, we suggest you check out the many materials available at your local library or contact the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality at (804) 698-4442.