1 . A method to transform a commonly thrown-away plastic to a resin (树脂) used in 3D printing could allow for making better use of plastic waste. A team of Washington State University researchers developed a simple and efficient way to transform polylactic acid (PLA)(聚乳酸), a bio-based plastic used in products such as filament, plastic silverware and food packaging to a high-quality resin.
“We found a way to immediately turn this into something that’s stronger and better, and we hope that will provide people the inspiration to upcycle this stuff instead of just throw it away,” said Yu-Chung Chang, a postdoctoral researcher in the WSU School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and a co-corresponding author on the work. “We made stronger materials just straight out of trash. We believe this could be a great opportunity.”
Although it’s bio-based, PLA, which is categorized as a number 7 plastic, doesn’t break down easily. It can float in fresh or salt water for a year without degrading (降解). It is also rarely recycled because like many plastics, when it’s melted down and re-formed, it doesn’t perform as well as the original version and becomes less valuable.
“It’s biodegradable and compostable, but once you look into it, it turns out that it can take up to 100 years for it to rot away in a landfill,” Chang said. “In reality, it still creates a lot of pollution. We want to make sure that when we do start producing PLA on the milliontons scale, we will know how to deal with it.”
While the researchers focused on PLA for the study, they hope to apply the work to poly-ethylene terephthalate (PET) (涤纶树脂), which is more common than PLA and has a similar chemical structure and presents a bigger waste problem. They have filed a temporary patent and are working to further optimize (优化) the process. The researchers are also looking into other applications for the upcycling method.
1. What can the method help do according to paragraph 1?| A．Solve financial crisis. | B．Change waste into wealth. |
| C．Control plastic production. | D．Determine 3D printing skills. |
| A．Promising. | B．Unrealistic. | C．Imaginable. | D．Reliable. |
| A．Invaluable to recycle. | B．Easy to deal with. |
| C．Hard to break down. | D．Difficult to sort out. |
| A．Applications for an upcylcing method. |
| B．A better method to break down plastic. |
| C．3D printing with newly found materials. |
| D．A new way to turn plastic into valuable products. |
2 . Soot (煤灰) pollution is speeding up climate-driven melting in Antarctica, a new study suggests, raising questions about how to protect the delicate continent from the increasing number of humans who want to visit.
“It really makes us question, is our presence really needed?” says Alia Khan, one of the authors of the new study. “We have quite a large black carbon footprint in Antarctica, which is enhancing snow and ice melt.”
Black carbon is the leftover thing from burning plants or fossil fuels. Soot in Antarctica comes primarily from waste gases of cruise ships (游轮), vehicles, airplanes and electrical generators, although some pollution travels on the wind from other parts of the globe. The dark particles (微粒) coat white snow and absorb heat from the sun the way a black T-shirt does on a warm day. The blanket of dark bits speeds up melting that was already happening more quickly because of global warming. When snow and ice are uncovered, they reflect an enormous amount of sunlight before it can turn into heat.
“These are the mirrors on our planet,” says Sonia Nagorski, a scientist at the University of Alaska Southeast. “When those mirrors are covered in a film of dark bits, they are less reflective. That means more heat is trapped on Earth, speeding up melting and contributing to global warming.”
As a scientist who personally visits Antarctica every year, Khan says she is troubled by her own research results. On the one hand, she goes to Antarctica to collect crucial data about how quickly the snow and ice there are disappearing. “But then when we come to conclusions like this it really does make us think twice about how frequently we need to visit the continent,” she says, “and what kind of regulations should be placed on tourism as well.” That could mean requiring that cruise ships and vehicles be electric, for example, or limiting the number of visitors each year.
1. What are the feelings expressed in Khan’s words in paragraph 2?| A．Doubt and concern. |
| B．Confidence and courage. |
| C．Anger and disappointment. |
| D．Optimism and certainty. |
| A．Burnt plants. |
| B．Tourist vehicles. |
| C．Black carbon elsewhere. |
| D．Fossil fuels underneath Antarctica. |
| A．It causes Antarctic surface temperature to rise. |
| B．It is increasing in amount because of wind. |
| C．It reflects a large volume of sunlight. |
| D．It is like a big mirror on Earth. |
| A．Help design scientific research regulations. |
| B．Use electric cars for her daily transportation. |
| C．Collect more data about Antarctica. |
| D．Reduce her visits to Antarctica. |
3 . Be a Green Child
What does it mean to be green? “Green” is more than just a color.
Reduce It!
Reuse It!
Sometimes people call ours a “throwaway society”. It means that we’re a little to willing to throw away old stuff (东西) and buy new stuff.
For instance, if your baby brother becomes older and loses interest in his plastic basketball hoop (篮圈), why not give it to another family who has a little kid?
Recycle It!
Recycling has never been easier. Many communities will pick it up right in front of your house and some towns even require it. Recycled goods go to a recycling center, where they can be turned into new cans, bottles, and paper.
Enjoy It!
It’s true that rubbish and pollution are problems, but the Earth remains a huge and beautiful place that’s ready for you to explore.
But before you travel the globe, take a look at your own backyard. Is there a spot where you could plant a tree or put in a little fruit or vegetable garden?
| A．It also means taking special steps to protect the environment. |
| B．Many times, even if you no longer need something, someone else just might. |
| C．You can start locally by visiting the naturally beautiful spots in your city. |
| D．Turn off the water when you’re brushing your teeth. |
| E．Get out there and get your hands dirty. |
| F．You can watch with pride as your tree takes root and your garden plants grow. |
| G．When you use less of something, you do a good thing for the Earth. |
4 . If plastic had been invented when the Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth, England, to North America - and their Mayflower had been stocked with bottled water and plastic-wrapped snacks, their plastic waste would likely still be around four centuries later. Atlantic waves and sunlight would have worn all that plastic into tiny bits. And those bits might still be floating around the world’s oceans today, waiting to be eaten by some fish or oyster, and finally perhaps by one of us.
Because plastic wasn’t invented until the late 19th century, and its production only really took off around 1950, we have a mere 9. 2 billion tons of the stuff to deal with. Of that, more than 6. 9 billion tons have become waste. And of that waste, a surprising 6. 3 billion tons never made it to a recycling bin - the figure that shocked the scientists who published the numbers in 2017.
No one knows how much unrecycled plastic waste ends up in the ocean, the earth’s last sink. In 2015, Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia engineering professor, caught everyone’s attention with a rough estimate: between 5. 3 million and 14 million tons of plastic waste each year just come from coastal regions.
Meanwhile, ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine( 海 洋 的 )animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it. Some are harmed visibly, stuck by abandoned things made of plastic. Many more are probably harmed invisibly. Marine species of all sizes, from zooplankton to whales, now eat microplastics, the bits smaller than one-fifth of an inch across.
“This isn’t a problem where we don’t know what the solution is,” says Ted Siegler, a Vermont resource economist who has spent more than 25 years working with developing nations on garbage. “We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to deal with it. We know how to recycle.” It’s a matter of building the necessary institutions and systems, he says, ideally before the ocean turns into a thin soup of plastic.
1. Why does the author mention the Pilgrims in paragraph 1?| A．To prove plastic was difficult to invent. |
| B．To introduce what marine animals like eating. |
| C．To tell the Pilgrims contributed a lot to the marine protection. |
| D．To show plastic waste has a lasting effect on the ocean. |
| A．Lacking protection. | B．Being stuck by plastics. |
| C．Being caught by humans. | D．Treating plastics as food. |
| A．Some people don’t know the solution of plastics waste. |
| B．Plastics will turn the ocean into a soup of plastic. |
| C．It’s time to take measures to deal with plastic waste. |
| D．People should avoid using plastics to protect the ocean. |
| A．A biology textbook. | B．A travel brochure. |
| C．An environmental report. | D．A lifestyle magazine. |
High on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
6 . Going green seems to be fad (时尚) for a lot of people these days. Whether that is good or bad, we can’t really say, but for the two of us, going green is not a fad but a lifestyle.
On April 22,2011,we decided to be green every single day for an entire year. This meant doing 365 different things, and it also meant challenging ourselves to go green beyond the easy things. Rather than recycle and reduce our energy, we had to think of 365 different things to do and this was no easy task.
With the idea of going green every single day a year, Our Green Year started. My wife and I decided to educate people about how they could go green in their lives and hoped we could show people all green things that could be done to help the environment. We wanted to push the message that every little bit helps.
Over the course of Our Green Year, we completely changed our lifestyles. We now shop at organic (有机的) stores. We consume less meat, choosing green food. We have greatly reduced our buying we don’t need. We have given away half of what we owned through websites. Our home is kept clean by vinegar and lemon juice, with no chemical cleaners. We make our own butter, enjoying the smell of home-made fresh bread. In our home office anyone caught doing something ungreen might be punished.
Our minds have been changed by Our Green Year. We are grateful for the chance to have been able to go green and educate others. We believe that we do have the power to change things and help our planets.
1. What might be the best title for the passage?| A．Going Green. | B．Protecting the Planet. |
| C．Keeping Open-Minded | D．Celebrating Our Green Year. |
| A．they were expected to follow the green fad |
| B．they didn’t know how to educate other people |
| C．they were unwilling to reduce their energy |
| D．they needed to perform unusual green tasks |
| A．They tried to get out of their ungreen habits. |
| B．They ignore others’ ungreen behavior. |
| C．They chose better chemical cleaners. |
| D．They sold their home-made food. |
| A．The government will give support to the green people. |
| B．The couple may continue their project in the future. |
| C．Some people disagree with the couple’s green ideas. |
| D．Our Green Year is becoming a national campaign. |
