1 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. fertile   B. rewoven C. deep-rooted D. recapture   E. produce   F. needlessly G. foodstuffs H. minerals   I. worthlessly   J. document   K. deforested

The Promise of the Circular Economy

The origins of the expression “waste not, want not” can be traced to the 1500s.We feel bad when we expend resources     1     (like leaving lights on when we’re away) or throw out things that shouldn’t have become trash (like uneaten, past-its-prime produce). This is a     2     guilty feeling.

But we do waste in ways big and small. The result is this shocking fact: Of the     3    , fossil fuels, and other raw materials that we take from the Earth and turn into products, about two-thirds end up as waste. And, more likely than not, that waste is part of a larger environmental problem.

“Plastic trash drifted into     4     soils, rivers and oceans. A third of all food rotted, even as the Amazon was     5     to produce more,” writes senior environment editor Robert Kunzig in “The End of Trash”. Climate change is what happens when “we burn fossil fuels and spread the waste – carbon dioxide -- into the atmosphere.”

What if we could     6     waste and turn it into something else? This concept, called the circular economy, is not entirely new. For generations, in Prato, Italy, old wool sweaters have been reduced to their knitting thread and     7     into new clothes. And environmentalists have supported the ideas of “reduce, reuse and recycle” since the 1970s.

Kunzig was sent to     8     where the new circular economy is taking hold. They found a lot of examples. In London, researchers are feeding rotted farm     9     to insects, which are made into animal feed. In hotel kitchens around the world, chefs are reducing waste from     10     like cookies, yogurt and Coke with AI garbage cans that measure it.

“It reminds me of a line in Diner, a movie I love: If you don’t have good dreams, you got nightmares.” Kunzig said, “The circular economy is like that -- it’s a dream we have to try to make real.”

2 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. astonishing   B. processing   C. ensure   D. blame   E. virtually F. routinely     G. occurs       H. consequences I. admitted   J. decent   K. estimated

As many sit down to enjoy plentiful holiday meals this season, it’s also a good time to note the growing problem of food waste.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, it is     1     that one-third of food produced for human consumption worldwide annually is lost or wasted.

The economic and environmental impacts of food loss and waste are     2    . More than a quarter of the world’s agricultural land is being worked to grow food that nobody eats.

What’s the difference between food loss and food waste? Waste happens toward the back end of the food chain, at the retail and consumer level. Loss, on the other hand, mostly     3     at the front of the food chain — during production, post-harvest, and     4     — and it’s more common in the developing world, where all of the food usually can’t be delivered in     5     shape, to consumers.

In developed nations, extreme-efficient farming practices, plenty of refrigeration, and first-rate transportation and storage     6    that most of the food they grow reaches the retail level. But things go rapidly south from there.

Store managers     7     over-order goods, for fear of running out of a particular product. The British supermarket chain Tesco, for example,     8     throwing out nearly 50,000 tons of food within their UK stores during the latest financial year.

Consumers are also to     9    . We often order too much food in restaurants without taking leftovers home. We overbuy when there is a discount for invitingly packaged food. When we store food, many of us take “use by” dates literally, and we suffer no     10     for dumping eatable food into a bin.