Thanks.
What is the OA for this question?
Can you summarize what are the mistakes in each answer choice?
I am confused with so much information.

Hi Ron

In choice A....

Use of "Due to " is better than use of "because of"..., and that will make A best among ohter choices.
Please comment..

Choice A doesn't convey the right meaning. If I say that littering occurred 'because of' the intentional discarding of those items, that implies that the intentional discarding WASN'T the actual littering. Instead, it means that the intentional discarding set into motion a chain of events that LED to the littering.

For instance:
'The U.S. entered World War II because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.' -- Correct: the bombing was an event that then LED to the U.S. decision to enter the war, but did not constitute the war itself.

'The U.S. destroyed Hiroshima because of dropping a nuclear bomb.' -- Incorrect: this sentence wrongly implies that the dropping of the bomb LED to some future event in which the U.S. destroyed Hiroshima, rather than that the dropping of the bomb WAS the actual event that destroyed Hiroshima.

In #C there's no NOUN that serves as the focus of the modifier 'resulting from...' (an adjective-type modifier). It's intended to modify the general idea that the orbits have become littered, but there's no NOUN that signifies the littering.

#D has the same problem as #A ('because' is wrong).

I agree with your explanation on why A is wrong logically, but , I think, we can also eliminate A grammatically. 'because' needs a clause, so there is no clause after 'because' in the modifier, making this option wrong.

consensus is that you just can't have 'resulting from' after a comma.

you can have it as an adjective modifier, without a comma - as in the following sentence:
the flooding resulting from the abnormally strong storms had left six inches of standing water in the street.
note that the boldface is an adjective modifier, modifying 'flooding'.

it appears that on the gmat, as well as in standard written english in general, 'resulting from' after a comma is generally considered unacceptable.

--

choice b features the standard use of a prepositional phrase as an adverb modifier:
'(possibly) as a result of', like other prepositional phrases that follow commas, serves to modify the action of the preceding clause (i.e., were dwindling). this is totally standard usage, so make sure you know it.

Ron,
in this post
a-study-of-food-resources-in-the-north-pacific-between-1989-t1061.html

its mentioned that "resulting from" cannot have comma before - Is that rule applicable here - or not (since we have often here, before "resulting from ")

I think the content posted in the above link may need to be edited in case its the former

Choice A doesn't convey the right meaning. If I say that littering occurred 'because of' the intentional discarding of those items, that implies that the intentional discarding WASN'T the actual littering. Instead, it means that the intentional discarding set into motion a chain of events that LED to the littering.

For instance:
'The U.S. entered World War II because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.' -- Correct: the bombing was an event that then LED to the U.S. decision to enter the war, but did not constitute the war itself.

'The U.S. destroyed Hiroshima because of dropping a nuclear bomb.' -- Incorrect: this sentence wrongly implies that the dropping of the bomb LED to some future event in which the U.S. destroyed Hiroshima, rather than that the dropping of the bomb WAS the actual event that destroyed Hiroshima.

In #C there's no NOUN that serves as the focus of the modifier 'resulting from...' (an adjective-type modifier). It's intended to modify the general idea that the orbits have become littered, but there's no NOUN that signifies the littering.

#D has the same problem as #A ('because' is wrong).

Since the start of the space age, more and more littering has occurred in orbits near Earth, often because the intentional discarding lens caps, packing material, fuel tanks, and payload covers.

I have read the aforementioned explanations and totally appreciated them.

I have a small question regarding modifier highlighted above (since........ age), is it a noun modifier intended to modify the noun, orbit or is it a verb modifier modifying the verb, 'occupied' ?

Thanks
Akshay

I think prepositional phrases / subordinate clauses (modifiers) before the comma will modify the first noun or the subject of the sentence following the comma.