单选题 Disposing (处理) of waste has been a problem since humans started producing it. As more and more people choose to live close together in cities, the waste-disposal problem becomes increasingly difficult.
During the eighteenth century, it was usual for several neighboring towns to get together to select a faraway spot as a dump site. Residents or trash haulers (垃圾托运经营者) would transport household rubbish, rotted wood, and old possessions to the site. Periodically (定期的) some of the trash was burned and the rest was buried. The unpleasant sights and smells caused no problem because nobody lived close by.
Factories, mills, and other industrial sites also had waste to be disposed of. Those located on rivers often just dumped the unwanted remains into the water. Others built huge burners with chimneys to deal with the problem.
Several facts make these choices unacceptable to modern society. The first problem is space. Dumps, which are now called landfills, are most needed in heavily populated areas. Such areas rarely have empty land suitable for this purpose. Property is either too expensive or too close to residential (住宅区的) neighborhoods. Long distance trash hauling has been a common practice, but once farm areas are refusing to accept rubbish from elsewhere, cheap land within trucking distance of major city areas is almost nonexistent.
Awareness (意识) of pollution dangers has resulted in more strict rules of waste disposal. Pollution of rivers, ground water, land and air is a price people can no longer pay to get rid of waste. The amount of waste, however, continues to grow.
Recycling efforts have become commonplace, and many towns require their people to take part. Even the most efficient recycling programs, however, can hope to deal with only about 50 percent of a city's reusable waste.

单选题 The most suitable title for this passage would be ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[考点] 主旨题
[解析] 此题考查归纳主旨大意的能力。文章的第一句就是主题句。
单选题 During the 18th century, people disposed their waste in many ways EXCEPT for ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[考点] 细节题
[解析] 此题考查理解事实细节的能力。主题在文章的第二、三段。
单选题 What can be inferred from the fourth paragraph?
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[考点] 推断题
[解析] 此题考查推断能力。由第四段最后一句我们可知,现在社会很难找到填埋垃圾的地方。