Ashley Hanson, Peer Assisted Learning Facilitator at Loughborough University, Numerade Educator

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Impact Mathematics Algebra and More

Ecology You can find data about air pollution and other environmental issues on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) web site, www.epa.gov.
Ellis and Gabriela want to use the garbage-disposal data to help decide whether people are recycling more or less than they used to.
a. What is the percentage increase in tons of waste recycled or com- posted in 2000 compared to 1960?
b. Graph the amount of waste recycled or composted over the years 1960–2000.
c. Ellis argued that the answer to Part a and the graph from Part b show that recycling has improved a great deal in the last few decades. Do you agree? Why or why not?
d. Gabriela argued that they should compute a ratio for each year: the amount of waste recycled or composted to the total amount of waste generated. Make a table showing this ratio, as a decimal, for each year in the original table. Then graph the ratios over the 1960–2000 period.
e. What does your graph from Part d tell you about whether people are recycling more or less than they used to?

Chapter 10: Modeling with Data

Section 1: Data Patterns in Tables and Graphs