argument17 by linxz 垃圾回收公司 [Flamy July]

linxzUID: 2225479

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17

The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Walnut Grove town
newspaper.

"h council has advocated switching from EZ Disposal (which has
had the contract for trash collection services in Walnut Grove for the past ten
years) to ABC Waste, because EZ recently raised its monthly fee from $2,000 to
$2,500 a month, whereas ABC's fee is still $2,000. But the town council is
mistaken; we should continue using EZ. EZ collects trash twice a week, while ABC
collects only once. Moreover, EZ?awhich, like ABC, currently has a fleet of 20
trucks?ahas ordered additional trucks. Finally, EZ provides exceptional service:
80 percent of respondents to last year's town survey agreed that they were
'satisfied' with EZ's performance."

------------------------------written@2006-7-1 15:00

In this argument, the author of the letter claims that the town should continue
employ EZ company for waste collection service. To support his view, the author
presents that EZ collects waste more frequently and has a lager fleet of trucks.
In addtion, he also cites a survey showing that 80 percent of its respondents
are satisfied with EZ's service. This argument suffers from some critical flaws.

First, the author confuses the frequency of garbage collection with the amount
of garbage collection. Given that EZ collects trash twice a week while ABC only
performs once per week, there is no gurantee that EZ is more efficient that ABC.
Without the comparison of the exact amount of garbage collected each time by the
two companies, it is entirely possible that the trash carried away by EZ is even
less than the half of that can be carried away by ABC in a single operation. For
that matter, it is apparently that ABC perform a more effective clear of trash,
even though the service is available only once per week.

Moreover, the author assumes that the potential capacity of EZ is much larger by
indicating it has a fleet with more trucks. This is not necessary the case.
Since I am not informed about the capacity of each truck, it is quite possible
that the fleet of ABC only consists of 20 medium trucks while EZ has 10 giant
trucks. In that case, it is obviously that EZ can provide much better service,
for a fleet with fewer but larger trucks are both capable to carry more garbage
while easier to manage. Morever, even if the author provide the evidence that
the totally capacity of ABC's fleet is larger, which is, of course, an
unwarranted assumption, it never follows that the large capacity would make
sense to Walnut Grove's town. Without further information about the scale and
the population of the town, it is likely that the EZ's possible smaller fleet
can meet the need of the whole town, and more important, at a lower price.

Finally, the arguer bases on his conclusion on a survey to show the public's
approval of employing EZ, however, the statistical reliance of the survey is at
least open to doubt. Given that 80 percent of respondents felt satisfied with
the ABC's service, there is no gurantee that most people in the town do so,
lacking the clear number of the people who were asked but refused to response.
Their silent attitudes do not necessarily mean they feel argreeable with the
EZ' service. On the contrary, they might feel so repulsive that don't even want
to remark. In short, I would need more information to assess the public opinion.

To sum up, the argument is ill-conceived and poorly supported. To lend
credibility to the concluison, the author must provide clear evidence that EZ
could provide better service, which is worth of its relative higher price, to
meet the need of the town. To better evaluate the argument, I would need clear
information about the survey.