At the end of the year, it designs events to help children celebrate Christmas without increasing the amount of waste they create. Hanna Seligmann works for the foundation. “So let’s figure out what is in our bag of trash.” She shows adults and children how to reduce waste during the holiday gift-giving season. “You can sort it as a cardboard item or you can sort it as a plastic item.” “We encourage using things that are already in your house like newspaper, old magazines, using a gift within a gift.” Urging people to recycle is important in the Washington, D.C., area, because Potomac River, one of the most famous rivers in the country lies there.
“Over time we realized that really just doing trash cleanups was the symptom of the problem, not getting to the root cause. And so it was just a little over a decade ago that we started the initiative (倡议) itself.” says Seligman.
The Trash Free Potomac Watershed Initiative is an effort by the Alice Ferguson Foundation to support clean agricultural methods. It includes educational programs teaching children about the kinds of pollution that can enter the watershed.
One activity is called the Trash Timeline Game. It teaches children that the things they throw away do not decompose, at the same rate. For example, paper dissolves in about four weeks. An apple core may take two months to rot. A metal can take up to 100 years.
1. The Alice Ferguson Foundation ________.| A．devotes itself to keeping citizens engaged in going green |
| B．deals with relationship between people |
| C．teaches people how to form groups |
| D．concerns itself about children’s holidays |
| A．buying plastic items |
| B．celebrating Christmas |
| C．figuring out how much waste was produced |
| D．educating people to reduce less waste while enjoying Christmas |
| A．Environmental education. | B．Doing trash cleanups. |
| C．Saving water. | D．Celebrating holidays less. |
| A．Give off. | B．Break down. | C．Come out. | D．Pack up. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Selecting what to wear can be a difficult problem, especially if you’re a fashion victim.
Trying to follow the latest styles involves regular visits to the shops and sometimes spending much money on expensive designer clothes．But when the fashion changes, these clothes had to stay in the back of cupboards gathering dust, or just get thrown away.
There are many stores that now offer cheap “fast fashion”—low-price items that imitate the styles of more expensive designer brands.
Environmentalists are angered by the amount of energy involved in making these clothes and that many of them are made from non-recyclable materials. This means that items are just burned or go into landfill.
Writing about this for the BBC, Eleanor Lawrie says that people in the UK are the worst in Europe for doing this—with a million tons of unwanted textiles a year being thrown away.
And she says, “on top of often poor labour conditions for garment workers, the fashion industry is responsible for 20％of the world’s waste water, and 10％of carbon emissions.”
This is something the fashion industry is becoming more aware of and has led to a new crop of biomaterials that replace wasteful textiles like cotton and leather.
Examples include Piňatex, a leather-like substance made from pineapple leaves. It’s been used in collections by Hugo Boss and H&M. And there’s mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms, that’s being used to create food, packaging and textiles. Cotton is a very resource-intense crop to grow. Eleanor Lawrie says, “about 15.000 litres of water are required to make one pair of 1eans.
So, buying organic cotton is a better choice. And there is also Tencel(天丝绒), also known as Lyocell(莱赛尔纤维绒), a natural product that’s now growing in popularity. It’s made by obtaining fibre from trees; its manufacture is thought to use 95％less water than cotton processing.
But creating sustainable(可持续的)textiles is only part of the battle-buying ethically(符合道德准则地), buying second hand and buying fewer clothes are the obvious environmentally friendly choices．
1. What does “fashion victim” mean according to the first paragraph?| A．People who are fed up with fashion． | B．People who pursue fashion blindly． |
| C．People who show no concern about fashion． | D．People who oppose fashion strongly． |
| A．Pineapple leaves． | B．Mushroom root． | C．Lyocell． | D．Cotton． |
| A．Cloth producers should produce less clothes． |
| B．Customers should be sensible when purchasing clothes． |
| C．Customers should wear old clothes rather than buy new ones． |
| D．Fashion industry should sell second hand and environmentally friendly clothes． |
| A．Many of the clothes that can’t be recycled are just burned or go into landfill． |
| B．About 15，000 litres of water are required to make one pair of jeans with cotton but Tencel is thought to use 95％of the water than cotton processing． |
| C．People in the UK are the worst in the world for throwing away unwanted textiles according to Eleanor Lawrie． |
| D．There is no crop of biomaterials that replace wasteful textiles like cotton and leather． |
【推荐2】In the 1960s and 1970s, the greatest fear was that the human race, and possibly all advanced life forms on the planet, could be wiped out by nuclear missiles. Today, however, environmental problems have taken over as the greatest risk to life on Earth. Scientists are thinking of ways to lower this risk, such as replacing coal and oil with forms of renewable energy. But they are also preparing for the worst: what can we do if the terrifying scenes in films such as The Day After Tomorrow happen in real life? What is our plan B for Earth?
One option is to explore other planets to see if we could live on them. The most likely choice is Mars, which is relatively close to Earth and has an environment less hostile than that of other planets. Mars has fascinated people since ancient times, and today our interest in Martian exploration is greater than ever before. Besides, more governments are making efforts to educate the public on the Red Planet.
There is no doubt that humankind is drawn towards Mars. However, sending people there will require all the skill, courage and intelligence. While the Moon can be reached within days, it would take months to reach Mars, travelling through dangerous solar radiation. And even if the first settlers do reach Mars safely, they may not be able to return to Earth — ever. Staying alive will be a daily challenge, but as proved by the Biosphere 2 experiment, not impossible. As early as the 1980s, scientists were building Biosphere 2 in the Arizona desert, consisting of a closed space in which people, animals and plants could live together. Although the two-year experiment was not a success, it did provide us with a better understanding of how humans might be able to live on another planet.
For now, human settlement of Mars is still decades away. Until we are finally able to live on another planet, we need to take much better care of our own. Right now, it's the only one we have!
1. What was the biggest threat to humans in the 1960s and 1970s?| A．Human race themselves. | B．All advanced life forms. |
| C．Nuclear missiles. | D．Environmental problems. |
| A．It's closest to the earth. |
| B．It has relatively appropriate living conditions. |
| C．It has drawn the public's attention in recent years. |
| D．It has a more hostile environment. |
| A．Humans have visited Mars. |
| B．The Biosphere 2 experiment proved to be valueless. |
| C．Humans will have to go and live on another planet. |
| D．Our Plan A includes developing renewable energy resources. |
| A．The Traveler. | B．Environmental Concerns. |
| C．All About Space. | D．Biology for Fun, |
【推荐3】Concerns about microplastics are not new. They’ve been growing for more than a decade. Over the past two years, however, many creative solutions have emerged to address the problem on a local level. Still, experts say there’s a need for a huge effort if we want to curb (控制) the global issue.
The term microplastics was coined in 2004 by marine ecologist Richard Thompson after he discovered tiny bits of plastic littering British beaches. Since then, scientists have found microplastics nearly everywhere. Even inside us. According to a 2021 study in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, the physical presence of plastic inside the body poses a potential problem. Plastic’s chemical additives might also affect different species’ tissues and organs. However, there is disagreement as to how much microplastics harm species, including humans.
For a global view of this vast issue, Duke University scientists created a public database to track plastic removal innovations. For instance, the Hoola One is a vacuum that internally separates microplastics from organic materials. In Amsterdam, scientists have introduced the Bubble Barrier in canals, a device that creates a wall of bubbles to send submerged plastic to the surface. Hong Kong Polytechnic University researchers presented a unique idea — a bacteria biofilm that could attract and trap microplastics before they flow into rivers and oceans.
But “if you have a technology that would capture microplastics before they enter our waterways, that would be ideal,” says Zoie Diana, who added 40 new inventions this year. That’s where Alain Marty, chief scientist at the biochemistry start-up Carbios, comes into the picture. In a 2020 Nature article, Marty and colleagues describe how they engineered an enzyme (酶) to break down plastic efficiently. “Industries could employ that in their manufacturing processes so that nearly all of their material could be reused to create products. Marty’s discovery is a breakthrough in the right direction, though preventing microplastics by reducing our plastic use also matters,” says Diana. “We really want to turn off the tap.”
1. What can we learn about microplastics?| A．They didn’t exist until 2004. |
| B．They can be easily tracked down. |
| C．They remain a matter of worldwide concern. |
| D．They do more harm to other species than humans. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By referring to another study. | D．By presenting research findings. |
| A．The enzyme can solve industries' productivity problems. |
| B．Taps should be prohibited for fear of the spread of microplastics. |
| C．A decline in plastic use is no less important than Marty's discovery. |
| D．Microplastics-capturing technology can rid waterways of microplastics. |
