Garbage(垃圾) Island
You can’t see it from the air. It’s almost impossible to see from a ship. But somewhere in the North Pacific is a huge island of garbage, just below the water surface.
What is the island made of?
The garbage island is not an island, but a collection of millions of plastic and other objects. The water movements of Pacific Ocean bring the objects together and cause them to go around in a big circle.
Charles Moore found it in 1997 and named it “the Great Pacific Garbage Patch” .
Where does all the plastic come from?
Much of the garbage comes from everyday objects, such as shopping bags and water bottles. Some of these objects finally reach the ocean. Garbage from the western coast of North America takes about six years to reach it. Objects from East Asia take about a year. Other garbage comes from ships passing through the area.
Is the Garbage Patch dangerous?
The larger pieces of garbage are a problem for wildlife. For example, sea turtles（海龟）and seabirds often think the plastic is their food. They eat the plastic and die.
In addition, the plastic stops sunlight from reaching deeper water. Without sunlight, very small sea animals die. Then, there is less food for larger fish to eat.
What can we do to help stop it?
Cleaning up the island isn’t easy. But we can make people realize the problem. One environmentalist(环保主义者), David de Rothschild, is sailing around the world in boat made of plastic bottles to teach people about the problem of garbage in the sea.
Another idea is that we can recycle the plastic garbage. Environmental engineer Cesar Harada is building a robot that collects pieces of plastic. Harada hopes to use his robot in the Pacific. Harada also has a website for reporting environmental problems. He says, “I hope everybody can become an environmental activist.”
1. What is the garbage made of?
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2. How long does it take objects from East Asia to reach the island?
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3. Is the garbage island dangerous?
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4. Why is David de Rothschild sailing in bottle boat?
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5. What can you do to help stop garbage island?
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| Going Green Humans have lived on the earth for 35, 000 years, but during this period, we have polluted our planet a lot in many ways. What can we do to build a beautiful China?  | |
| Green China Waste-to-energy is burning the waste to produce electricity. First, the cleaners collect household waste. Then, the waste is sorted through a series of smart sensors (智能传感器). Next, the sorted waste is poured into three different pools and dried. After that, the waste is sent to the incinerator (焚化炉) for burning. Finally the heat changes water into steam (蒸汽) to produce electricity. The ash and metals in the slag (炉渣) can be recycled and reused. By the end of 2021, there were more than 700 waste-to-energy sites across the country, processing 820,000 tons of waste per day. China has become the largest player in this area now.  | A zero-waste life A zero-waste life follows the 6R rule—Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle and Rot (堆肥降解). People are helping our planet in this way. Following the rule, Liu Yu, 27, produced only two cans of rubbish for three months. She also opened a zero-waste shop in Chongqing to provide daily zero-waste products. All products are reusable. “The zero-waste lifestyle is not for ascetics (苦行僧) but for everyone. It’s just around us at our fingertip (指尖). To save the Earth, many hands make light work,” says Yu.  |
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2. What kind of life does Liu Yu live?
3. In your own words, summarize (总结) what students in Green Planet have done for Going Green.
4. According to Green China, how can common people contribute (作出贡献) to waste-to-energy?
In many countries of the world people are saying, “We must do something about our rubbish. We don’t want our world to become one big landfill site (垃圾填埋场).”
In Ireland the government was very worried about plastic bags so they decided to make people pay for them. Since 2002 Irish people have been paying for the bags they take home from the shops. Of course, they soon stopped buying new bags and started taking bags with them when shopping.
Some countries have made even bigger changes. In 2006, the people of Zanzibar decided to stop making plastic bags. They were worried the bags were killing sea animals. They also said nobody could bring plastic bags into the country. Soon there were no plastic bags in the place.
One of the most exciting recycling (再利用) ideas is Freecycle. It has grown around the world. People join a Freecycle group because they are looking for things or have things that they want to give to other people. Perhaps they have a chair they do not need any more, or they want a camera. They leave a message on the Internet to tell people what they want or what they are going to give. Nobody buys or sells anything—people give things to other people who want them. It is a good idea because it recycles useful things.
Recycling is important and sometimes it is exciting too, but it is only one part of the answer. Using less and reusing are also important answers to the problem of rubbish.
1. What did the Irish government ask people to do?2. When did people start to stop making plastic bags in Zanzibar?
3. Who buys or sells things through Freecycle?
4. What do people think of recycling according to the article?
5. What do you often do to deal with the problem of rubbish? (请自拟一句话作答)
