1 . Styrofoam, or polystyrene, is a light-weight material, about 95 percent air, with very good insulation (隔热) properties, according to Earthsource.org. It is used in products from cups that keep your drinks hot or cold to packaging material that protects items during shipping. With the above good features, Styrofoam still enjoys a bad reputation. It cannot be recycled without releasing dangerous pollution into the air. The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency says it is the fifth-largest creator of harmful waste.
But now the common worms which are usually disgusting can come to the rescue, specifically, mealworms. Scientists from the U. S. and China have discovered that mealworms can digest plastic. One mealworm can digest a pill-sized amount of plastic a day. Study co-author Wei-Min Wu says that in 24 hours, the plastic is turned into carbon dioxide.
Since Styrofoam has no nutrition at all, are the worms hurt by eating plastic? Much to the scientists’ surprise, the study found that worms eating Styrofoam were as healthy as worms eating bran (谷糠). The researchers will study the worm’s eating habits and digesting system, looking to copy the plastic breakdown but on a larger scale. Once the way can be put into practice, it will make a revolutionary difference to the disposal of plastic.
“Solving the issue of plastic pollution is important”, says Wu, a Stanford University environmental engineering instructor. After all, our earth is small and landfill space is becoming limited with too much garbage waiting to be dealt with, he says.
About 33-million tons of plastic are thrown away in the United States every year. Plastic plates, cups and containers take up 25 percent to 30 percent of space in America’s landfills. One Styrofoam cup takes more than 1 million years to recycle in a landfill, according to Cleveland State University.
1. What do we know about Styrofoam?| A．It can be used to cool drinks. |
| B．It is a weightless material. |
| C．It is harmful when recycled. |
| D．It is usually used on ships. |
| A．Mealworms have amazing digesting power. |
| B．Mealworms are not bad in their nature. |
| C．Mealworms can rescue people’s lives. |
| D．People misunderstood mealworms in the past. |
| A．To find ways to help mealworms grow larger. |
| B．To imitate their ways of breaking down plastic. |
| C．To help develop their digesting ability. |
| D．To make sure of their safety after eating plastic. |
| A．by raising amounts of mealworms |
| B．by environmental engineering instructors |
| C．using a method inspired by eating mealworms |
| D．without sending out dangerous pollution |
| A．Styrofoam is widely used in daily life. |
| B．Mealworms are genius at eating plastic. |
| C．Plastic recycling may be no more a problem. |
| D．Plastic can be turned into carbon dioxide. |
2 . In the UK, the government showed throwaway cups should be forbidden altogether by 2023 if they are not all being recycled. As a result, Starbucks said it would try out a 5p (5 pence) cup charge in 20 to 25 central London shops. “We will begin it next month and at first it will last for three months,” the company said, adding that it continued to offer a 25p (25 pence) discount to customers who brought their own reusable cups.
The government agrees plastic waste is a problem and will consider taxing disposable (一次性的) plastics. The committee’s chair, Mary Creagh, said, “The UK throws away 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups every year. Almost none are recycled. Coffee cup producers and shops haven’t taken action to change this. So we need to kick-start a change in recycling.”
The Liberal Democrats said they had been suggesting a charge on coffee cups since September 2016. The party’s spokesman, Tim Farron, said, “The result is clear that the tax works. The 5p charge on plastic bags has largely cut down the usage and helped protect our environment.”
The 5p tax is being against by the makers of paper cups. Mike Tuner, of the Paper Cup Alliance, said paper cups were the safest solution for drinks. “The paper cups we produce in the UK can be recycled, and are being recycled. We are trying to increase recycling rates. Taxing the morning coffee run won’t solve the problem, but it will hurt consumers,” he said.
Disposable coffee cups are technically recyclable, but most are not because the UK has just three machines that can split the paper and plastic parts for recycling. The committee has called on the government to require coffee cups from cafes without in-store recycling systems to carry “not recycled” marks to remind customers. Cafes with in-store recycling systems should print their cups with “recyclable in store only”.
1. About the throwaway cups, Starbucks will ________.| A．offer a half-price discount to customers with their own cups |
| B．support the idea of forbidding throwaway cups till 2023 |
| C．charge customers 5p per throwaway cup in some shops |
| D．stop to offer throwaway cups in its shops right now |
| A．Coffee cup makers will take action to recycle the water. |
| B．The use of the disposable plastics is a nationwide problem. |
| C．Coffee cup users pay much attention to the plastic problem. |
| D．The UK government will ban all disposable coffee cups by 2023. |
| A．More people will fight against the charge. |
| B．There will be little change in our environment. |
| C．Fewer people will use the disposable coffee cups. |
| D．There will be a competition between coffee shops. |
| A．will be supported by the makers of the paper cups |
| B．will affect the consumers instead of solving the problem |
| C．can give a hand to increasing recycling rates of the makers |
| D．can be the best solution for the government to cut down waste |
| A．There are not enough professionals in this area. |
| B．There is not enough professional equipment. |
| C．Consumers don’t have recycling knowledge. |
| D．Cafes don’t have recycling systems at all. |
3 . A major new facility to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere has started operating in Iceland, which is a boost to an emerging technology that experts say could eventually play an important role in reducing greenhouse gases.
The plant in southwest Iceland is the biggest of its kind, its builder says. It is able to capture 900 tons of CO2 every year but it needs heat and electricity to work. It is using energy produced from waste and is built on the roof of a waste incineration plant, and through the burning of rubbish, energy is generated.
Human-sized fans are built into a series of boxes. They take CO2 out of the air, catching it in spongelike filters (过滤器). The filters are blasted with heat, freeing the gas, which is then mixed with water and pumped deep into deep underground basalt caves, where over time it turns into dark-gray stone. Pumping CO2 into the ground is just one way to deal with it. The makers are also selling the gas to be used again. The CO2 can be captured just a few 100 miles away. It is pumped through an underground pipeline directly into a greenhouse. Vegetables and plants love CO2 and higher concentrations of the gas within the greenhouse improve the growth of plants.
By 2050, humanity will need to pull nearly a billion metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year through direct air capture technology to achieve carbon neutral goals, according to International Energy Agency recommendations. The plant in Iceland will be able to capture 4000 metric tons annually — just a small amount of what will be necessary, but an engineer in Climeworks, the company that built it, says it can grow rapidly as efficiency improves and costs decrease.
“This is a market that does not yet exist, but a market that urgently needs to be built,” said Christoph Gebald who co-founded Climeworks. “This plant that we have here is really the blueprint to further increase the size and really industrialize.”
1. What do we know about the carbon capture facility from paragraph 2?| A．It is built at high altitudes. | B．It uses waste to produce power. |
| C．It makes Iceland free of air pollution. | D．lt produces lots of heat during operation. |
| A．The methods of breaking down CO2. |
| B．The approaches to reusing waste gas. |
| C．The necessity of building greenhouses. |
| D．The workings of the carbon-catching plant. |
| A．It will decrease the cost of energy production. |
| B．It can help reach the carbon neutral goals in advance. |
| C．It will speed up the reduction of CO2 levels in the air. |
| D．It may replace the traditional carbon storage system. |
| A．The capture of CO2 in the atmosphere is able to kill many birds with one stone. |
| B．CO2 will be delivered to greenhouses after being turned into dark-gray stones. |
| C．A major new market to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere has started operating. |
| D．The plants in Iceland greenhouses can capture a small amount of CO2. |
| A．Ambiguous. | B．Neutral. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Supportive. |
4 . Eradajere Oleita thinks she may have a partial solution for two of her country’s persistent (持续的) problems: garbage and poverty (贫困). It’s called the Chip Bag Project. The 26-year-old student and environmentalist from Detroit is asking a (n)
Chip eaters drop off their
It
Since its start in 2020, the Chip Bag Project has
Sure, it would be simpler to
And, of course, there’s the symbolism of recycling bags that would otherwise land in the
| A．advice | B．question | C．favor | D．permission |
| A．throw | B．track | C．leak | D．lock |
| A．design | B．detect | C．digest | D．donate |
| A．homeless | B．disabled | C．old | D．sick |
| A．heavy | B．empty | C．luxury | D．full |
| A．moments | B．decisions | C．locations | D．conclusions |
| A．clean | B．load | C．soften | D．resolve |
| A．dig | B．slice | C．lift | D．knock |
| A．pays | B．takes | C．delays | D．wastes |
| A．resulting in | B．figuring out | C．contributing to | D．depending on |
| A．out | B．around | C．over | D．on |
| A．reached | B．related | C．found | D．collected |
| A．destroyed | B．repaired | C．compared | D．created |
| A．lose | B．lend | C．raise | D．drop |
| A．goal | B．income | C．profit | D．way |
| A．risking | B．recommending | C．attaining | D．realizing |
| A．driving | B．devoting | C．enjoying | D．encouraging |
| A．store | B．trash | C．solution | D．family |
| A．day after day | B．step by step | C．face to face | D．hand in hand |
| A．generations | B．inspirations | C．connections | D．expectations |
5 . In the United States, most of our electricity comes from power plants (发电厂) that burn coal and oil.
There are two big problems with using these things for electricity. First, their supply is limited (有限的). Second, burning them causes pollution. So to make sure we always have power and to keep our planet clean, we must find other ways to make electricity.
Some people think that wind power is our best choice. First, there will always be more wind. Also, wind power does not pollute the environment. Best of all, we don’t have to search for wind.
Today, less than 1 percent of our electricity comes from wind. But scientists have been developing better wind machines. As a result, wind power is getting more popular in this country.
Yet wind power may not keep growing so quickly in years to come. Why not? Many wind turbines (风力涡轮机) are needed to make much electricity. So wind-power companies try to build wind farms but are competing (竞争) with other uses for the land. A wind farm is a group of turbines placed close together in an area with frequent winds.
In places where companies try to build wind farms, people think that lines of turbines are ugly. Noise from turbines often troubles people. Also, turbines kill birds that fly into them.
Wind-power supporters disagree. They think the sight of wind turbines is lovely. They point out that people have gotten used to living near noisy highways. They say ways can be found to keep birds away from turbines.
In today’s world, we need clean and unlimited power sources more than ever. Unless a better power source comes along, people may just have to accept wind power as a part of their lives.
1. The underlined part “these things” in the second paragraph refers to ________.| A．frequent winds. | B．wind turbines. |
| C．power plants. | D．coal and oil. |
| A．How wind power works. |
| B．How wind power was found. |
| C．The advantages of wind power. |
| D．The development of wind power. |
| A．It is very expensive to build lots of wind turbines. |
| B．It is difficult to improve the wind power technology. |
| C．There are few people who accept it as a new power source. |
| D．Many wind turbines are needed and there is less space for them. |
| A．make a loud noise. |
| B．look very beautiful. |
| C．are built near highways. |
| D．provide places for birds to stay. |
| A．The Role of Wind. |
| B．The Power of Wind. |
| C．The Cost of Wind Power. |
| D．The History of Wind Power. |
6 . Priscilla Ouchida’s “energy efficient” house turned out to be a horrible dream. When she and her engineer husband married a few years ago, they built a $100,000 three-bedroom home in California. Tightly sealed to prevent air leaks, the house was equipped with small double-paned windows and several other energy-saving features. Problems began as soon as the couple moved in, however. Priscilla’s eyes burned. Her throat was constantly dry. She suffered from headaches and could hardly sleep. It was as though she had suddenly developed a strange illness.
Experts finally traced the cause of her illness. The level of formaldehyde gas in her kitchen was twice the maximum allowed by federal standards for chemical workers. The source of the gas? Her new kitchen cabinets and wall-to-wall carpeting.
The Ouchidas are victims of indoor air pollution, which is not given sufficient attention partly because of the nation’s drive to save energy. The problem itself isn’t new. “The indoor environment was dirty long before energy conservation came along,” says Moschandreas, a pollution scientist at Geomet Technologies in Maryland. “Energy conservation has tended to accentuate the situation in some cases.”
The problem appears to be more troublesome in newly constructed homes rather than old ones. Back in the days when energy was cheap, home builders didn’t worry much about unsealed cracks. Because of such leaks, the air in an average home was replaced by fresh outdoor air about once an hour. As a result, the pollutants generated in most households seldom built up to dangerous levels.
1. It can be learned from the passage that the Ouchidas’ house ________.| A．is well worth the money spent on its construction |
| B．is almost faultless from the point of energy conservation |
| C．failed to meet energy conservation standards |
| D．was designed and constructed in a scientific way |
| A．Poor quality of the air inside. | B．Poor quality of the construction. |
| C．Gas leakage in the kitchen. | D．The newly painted walls. |
| A．relieve | B．accelerate | C．worsen | D．improve |
| A．Because indoor cleanliness was not emphasized. |
| B．Because energy used to be inexpensive. |
| C．Because environmental protection was given top priority. |
| D．Because they were technically unavoidable. |
| A．Energy Conservation | B．House Building Crisis |
| C．Air Pollution Indoors | D．Traps in Building Construction |
7 . Last Friday, at least 5 people were killed by lightning in Nepal.
Lightning strikes are the second most common cause of deaths during natural disasters in the US. The first is floods. Around 400 people nationwide are struck by lightning each year, and of those, 70 people die. That is, more people are killed by lightning than by tornadoes and hurricanes.
Because lightning kills only one or two people at a time, its danger does not receive as much attention as other disasters.
"If you hear the thunder, you are in danger from lightning," said Rocky Lopes, a disaster educator at the American Red Cross.
"Thunder means that lightning is close enough to hit you at any time, so you should move indoors immediately and stay there until the storm has ended. The most important thing to remember is to seek shelter (遮蔽物), " Lopes said.
Summer is the peak time for lightning storms, so when lightning strikes across the sky, remember these safety tips:
♦ Stop working, fishing, swimming or playing in open fields.
♦ Do not stand under a tree.
♦ Get off bicycle and motorcycles.
♦ Crouch down (蹲下) if there is no shelter.
♦ Avoid open spaces, wire fences, metal objects and electrical objects such as hair driers.
1. In the US, ______ is the most common cause of deaths during natural disasters.| A．lightning | B．tornadoes | C．hurricanes | D．floods |
| A．400 | B．70 | C．330 | D．5 |
| A．stand still in the open spaces |
| B．find shelter to hide in |
| C．stand under the tree |
| D．stop working in the fields |
| A．Floods are the most common cause of deaths in the US. |
| B．Less than 70 people are killed by tornadoes and hurricanes each year in the US. |
| C．If you hear the thunder, you should move indoors right away. |
| D．People don't pay as much attention to the danger of hurricanes as that of floods. |
| A．The Danger of Lightning | B．Some Safety Tips against Floods |
| C．How Lightning Happens | D．5 People Killed by Lightning in Nepal |
8 . Wind power is a very clean source of energy. This is how wind power works. Wind makes windmills spin(旋转). When the windmills spin, they make electricity. Then we can use the electricity.
A lot of people think that wind power is new, but that’s not true. For thousands of years, people have used wind to sail boats and move water. We still do those things today, but these days we mostly use wind power to make electricity.
Wind power is a very popular source of energy. Most people think that we should use it more and more. First of all, it’s clean. Windmills don’t pollute the environment at all. Second, we can use wind power forever. After all, we will always have wind. Also, wind power is cheap, and it’s getting even cheaper.
A lot of people don’t understand wind power very well. They believe that there are problems with wind power, but many of those problems are not real. For example, some people say that windmills are dangerous for birds. They used to be true, but it isn’t true anymore. Old windmills killed birds because they spun very fast. New windmills spin slowly, and they aren’t dangerous for birds.
However, there are real problems with windmills. One problem is that many people think windmills are very ugly. This is a problem for people, because windmills are often in very pretty areas. Also, wind doesn’t blow all the time, so we can’t use wind power all the time. Finally, windmills are noisy.
Wind power is becoming more and more common. Right now, more than 80 countries use wind power. About 2.5 percent of the world’s power comes from the wind. For some countries, that number is a lot higher. Wind power gives Denmark more than 25 percent of its electricity.
1. Why DON’T new windmills kill birds? Because ________.| A．birds don’t fly near them | B．they are shorter than old windmills |
| C．they spin slowly | D．new windmills don’t spin |
| A．Over 1,000 years ago. | B．About 500 years ago. |
| C．About 80 years ago. | D．About 25 years ago. |
| A．We can’t use windmills at night |
| B．Windmills break all the time |
| C．Wind doesn’t blow all the time |
| D．Windmills are too expensive to use all the time |
| A．Most people don’t like it. | B．Denmark doesn’t use it. |
| C．It’s getting more expensive. | D．It’s getting cheaper. |
| A．Dangerous Birds | B．Popular and Clean Wind Power |
| C．Cheap and Clean Energy | D．Expensive Windmills |
9 . Great Barrier Reef Choking on Pollutants
Attempts to protect the Great Barrier Reef are failing. A report released Monday by the government in Australia says water quality in the Great Barrier Reef is far below what it should be. It showed that pollution have decreased, but not enough to reach environmental targets.
Sediment (沉淀物) and chemicals can weaken coral, hurting its ability to feed and grow. Coral are live animals that take root in the ocean floor, but they are not plants. Reefs are the hard skeletons (骨架) left at the bottom of the sea by small marine creatures called polyps (珊瑚虫). The polyps then form the larger structure of a reef. Corals also are some of the most diverse ecosystems on the entire planet. They can make a home for invertebrates, crustaceans, fish, and sea snakes.
Steve Miles is Queensland’s environment minister. He says the research shows the Reef needs more protection. “Over that five-year period, we did see some progress towards our targets. Sediment is down 12 percent and pesticides (杀虫剂) loads are down 30 percent. But what is most disturbing is that these results are far from our targets. Progress towards these targets flat-lined in the period 2013-2014. If one of my kids came home with a report card like this, I would be a bit disappointed. There is more bad news here than good news. ” said Steve Miles.
The report also found that fewer than one-third of Queensland’s sugar plantations used techniques to reduce the use of pesticides. Only 28 percent of land managers managed their land properly. They had reduced harmful water run off to protect the health of the Reef. The official target is a 90 percent reduction in pesticide use within three years.
Scientists at the University of Queensland and the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences published their findings Wednesday, July 18 in the journal Science Advances. It found between 1992 and 2010, the recovery rate dropped by an average of 84 percent. But there is hope. The study also found some corals can recover quickly if “acute and chronic stressors” are lessened.
Meanwhile, the Australian government released its updated reef protection plan Friday. It clearly states global temperatures must be stopped from rising in order to save the world’s largest living structure.
1. What does the underlined word “They” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Diverse ecosystems. | B．Sediment and chemicals. |
| C．Reefs and corals. | D．Small sea creatures. |
| A．He is satisfied with the protection of the Reef. |
| B．He thinks that the Reef needs more protection. |
| C．He feels angry with what his children did. |
| D．He is very happy about the Reef progress protection. |
| A．Not increase significantly. | B．Disappear. |
| C．Speed up. | D．Miss the chance. |
| A．were tough to deal with | B．failed to manage their land properly |
| C．reduced the amount of harmful water | D．were eager to quit pesticide soon |
| A．A news report. | B．A science fiction. |
| C．A book review. | D．A guide book. |
10 . In 2016, the world’s population cast aside 49 million tons of electronic waste, known as e-waste. It has been calculated that this number will grow to more than 60 million tons by 2021.
What is causing the upsurge（激增）in e-waste? Technology is becoming more and more widespread, covering almost every aspect of our lives. Meanwhile, the lifespan of devices is getting shorter-many products will be thrown away once their batteries die, to be replaced by new devices. Companies intentionally plan the obsolescence（过时）of their goods by updating the design or software and discontinuing support for older models, so that now it is usually cheaper and easier to buy a new product than to repair an old one. Since prices are falling, electronic devices are in demand around the world.
As more people buy electronic equipment，manufacturers（制造商）are beginning to face shortages of the raw materials needed to make their products, so recycling and reusing materials from discarded（扔掉的）products and waste makes economic and environmental sense.
Recycling e-waste is practiced both formally and informally. Proper or formal e-waste recycling usually involves taking apart the electronics, separating and sorting through the materials and cleaning them. Companies must obey health and safety rules to reduce the health and environmental hazards of handling e-waste by using pollution-control technologies. All this makes formal recycling expensive. Informal recycling is typically unlicensed and uncontrolled. At informal recycling workshops, men and women recover valuable materials by burning devices to melt away non-valuable materials. Usually they do not wear protective equipment and lack any awareness that they are handling dangerous materials.
With the amount of e-waste growing around the world, recycling alone will not be enough to solve the problem. In order to reduce e-waste, manufacturers need to design electronics that are safer, and more durable, repairable and recyclable. The best thing you can do is resist buying a new device until you really need it. Try to get your old product repaired if possible and, if it can’t be fixed, resell or recycle it responsibly. Before you recycle your device, put any broken parts in separate containers and close these tightly to prevent chemicals from leaking. Wear latex gloves and a mask if you’ re handling something that’s broken.
1. Which of the following is the reason for e-waste’s increasing sharply?| A．The results of updating devices. |
| B．The methods of recycling e-waste. |
| C．The causes of devices’ price dropping. |
| D．The shortages of protective equipment. |
| A．To increase the variety of electronic products. |
| B．To lower the costs of technology innovation. |
| C．To relieve the lack of raw materials. |
| D．To improve the poor quality of e-devices. |
| A．Influence. | B．Harm. | C．Limits. | D．Costs. |
| A．Their ways of reusing waste are encouraged largely. |
| B．They are blamed for generating all the dangerous chemicals. |
| C．They aim to discover rare materials from waste for new products. |
| D．Their workers are unaware of the danger from dealing with devices. |
| A．Everyone should take action to reduce e-waste. |
| B．Companies should be mainly responsible for reducing e-waste. |
| C．Fixing a device could cause more pollution than buying a new one. |
| D．E-waste could be broken down by burying it underground for a long time. |
