1 . The East African country of Kenya has been at the forefront of the global war on plastic since 2017, when officials banned plastic bags. In June 2020, the government intensified the efforts with a ban on single-use plastics in protected areas. Unfortunately, the measures have _________ made any impact. Hundreds of tons of industrial and consumer polymer (聚合物) waste continue to get _________ into landfills daily. However, if 29-year-old Nzambi Matee has her way, the unpleasant plastic heaps will soon be transformed into colourful bricks.

The material engineer’s search to find a(n) _________ solution to control plastic pollution began in 2017. She quit her job as a data analyst at a local chemical factory and set up a small lab in her mother’s backyard. It took her nine months to produce the first brick and even longer to _________ a partner to help build the machinery to make them. But the determined eco-entrepreneur was confident in her idea and did not give up.

She says, “I wanted to use my education in applied physics and material engineering to do something about the problem of plastic waste pollution. But I was very _________ that the solution had to be practical, sustainable, and affordable. The best way to do this was by _________ the waste into the construction and finding the most efficient and affordable material to build homes.”

Her company, Gjenge Makers, now hires 112 people and produces over 1,500 bricks a day. The pavers (铺路材料) are made using a mix of plastic products that cannot be reprocessed or recycled. The polymer is obtained _________ from factories or picked by hired locals from Nairobi’s largest landfill, Dandora.

The collected plastic is _________ with sand, heated at very high temperatures, and compressed into bricks that vary in colour and thickness. The resulting product is stronger, lighter, and about 30 percent cheaper than concrete bricks.

Matee, who was recently recognized as one of the Young Champions of the Earth 2020 — the United Nations’ highest environmental _________ — is far from done. Her dream is to reduce the mountain of trash in Dandora to just a hill by increasing production and expanding her offerings. She says, “The more we recycle the plastic, the more we produce affordable housing, and the more we create __________ for the youth.”

2 . Few people knew about online food delivery apps ten years ago, but today, many would find it hard to live without them. In China alone, over 400 million people use such apps. ________ online food delivery services have changed the way we eat, and they are also having a huge impact on our society.

These services have ________ brought us many benefits. They provide jobs for millions of people and help restaurants find more customers. Since the apps are very convenient, they also benefit consumers: we can now have meals delivered at any time of a day, ________ bad weather or busy schedules. This is especially true for people who work long hours, since they might not have time to cook. Not only do these apps _________ time, they also provide us with a wide variety of restaurants to choose from. They have proved to be useful for retired people as well: ________ who live far away from restaurants and supermarkets can now get hold of meals and groceries more easily.

However, we must not forget the ________ of online food delivery services. For one thing, they make it even easier to order unhealthy food, ________ in sugar, fat and salt. Food safety is another problem: it can be hard to ________ where the food actually comes from, and whether the owner is legally permitted to run a restaurant. As couriers (外卖员) need to deliver the orders as quickly as possible, some ________ traffic rules. In recent years, there have been a number of terrible traffic accidents because of this. ________, the industry is creating unbelievable amounts of packaging waste: over a million tonnes of online food delivery boxes are thrown away every year. Experts assume that this number will continue to ________ in the future, and this will have an increasingly negative impact on the environment.

There are many advantages of these services, but we need to make sure that we make the right choices ________. We should do our best to limit waste, especially when it comes to ________, so as to contribute to sustainable development. We also need to think about what we eat and the impact on our health. Next time you are thinking about ________, you should ask yourself whether you really need to. In most cases, it's better to walk over to the supermarket, buy the ________ you need, and then cook them yourself.

The Problem With Fast Fashion

There’s nothing quite like new clothes, is there? The UK certainly loves them. According to a report by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), the UK consumes five times more clothes today than it did in the 1980s. That’s more than any other nation in Europe and amounts to around

26.7 kg per person.This results in 235 million garments being dumped into landfills - victims of fast fashion.

Fast fashion is defined as “an accelerated fashion business model ”involving “increased numbers of new fashion collections every year,” “quick turnarounds(周转期)”and “lower prices,” according to the EAC. Globalization means that clothing is made in countries where labour is cheaper. These savings are passed on to consumers, who then consider the clothes they own disposable - easily replaceable with something more trendy. And that creates problems.

First, there’re the environmental costs. Manufacturing any kind of textile costs resources. For example, synthetic fibres, which are made from plastic, have a larger carbon footprint than natural ones. Natural fibres, although more carbon-efficient, still require more water to grow. And further resources are used as the cloth is dyed, made into clothing and transported to retail for sale. Secondly, the fast-fashion industry is under pressure to put the latest trending items on shelves faster, which can lead to workers being exploited and forced to labour in poor working conditions. In countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia and the Philippines, workers are paid wages that are insufficient to live on. One worker in Ethiopia told the BBC that they had to deal with intolerable conditions, such as withheld overtime payments, verbal abuse, and unsanitary toilets.

So what can be done in the UK to reduce clothing waste? The EAC has recommended eighteen improvements to the UK government, from increasing tax on purchases to fund recycling centres to introducing more sewing lessons in schools, encouraging a make do and mend attitude when things become worn out.

Repair Café

When things around the house stop working, what do you usually do with them? If you're     1     a lot of people, you probably just throw them away.

This tendency has led to the modern nickname: the throwaway culture. There are many reasons for this trend. In some areas     2     it's difficult to find people who can make repairs, fixing things can be quite expensive. Also, some small appliances are so inexpensive that it's often much     3     (easy) to just buy a new one.

In 2009, Martine Postma from the Netherlands decided there must be a better way. Her solution was Repair Cafés: places where people can take damaged or     4     (tear) items. There they will find tools, resources and volunteer experts who are willing to help with repairs.

Postma's first Repair Café opened on Oct. 18, 2009, in Amsterdam, and was a huge success. News of the café spread, and people began asking     5     they could start their own. In 2011, Postma established the Repair Café Foundation. This nonprofit organization provides guidance to those hoping to begin their own neighborhood repair group.

Today, there are roughly 2,000 Repair Cafés around the world with meetings typically    6     (occur) once a month. Around 25 objects per session are repaired.     7     is free, but donations are greatly appreciated.

Not only do the cafés provide help with repairs, they also strengthen community ties. Neighbors get to know one another as they work together on projects. In addition, valuable knowledge is passed along and preserved. Items are kept     8     thrown away, meaning less trash in landfills.    9     an average broken item weighs a kilo, it's been estimated that 2,000 Repair Cafés prevent 35,000 kilos of trash every month. That    10     (add) up to about 420,000 kilos per year!

6 . The world’s forests may hold more secrets than previously thought: a new global estimate of tree biodiversity suggests that there are about 9,200 tree species remaining undocumented. Most are likely in the tropics, according to the new research.

The new research drew on the efforts of hundreds of contributors, who have categorized trees in two huge data sets: One, the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative, records every species found in extensively documented forest plots worldwide. The other, TREECHANGE, puts together sightings of individual species. Together they suggest there are approximately 64,100 recorded tree species on the planet — up from previous estimates of around 60,000.

The researchers reached their estimate of an additional 9,200 yet undocumented species on the basis of the number of rare ones already in the databases. Most unknown species are likely to be defined as rare, found in limited numbers in small geographical areas, says the quantitative forest ecologist Jingjing Liang. The team’s result is “a rather conservative estimate,” Liang says, “because scientists know less about the preponderance of uncommon trees in places such as the Amazon, where out-of-the-way spots could host pockets of unusual species found nowhere else.” “If we can focus the resources on those rain forests in the Amazon,” Liang adds, “then we would be able to estimate it with higher confidence.”

Silman, a conservation biologist, who was not involved in the new study agrees that the study result is likely an underestimate. His and his colleagues’ local surveys suggest there are at least 3,000 and possibly more than 6,000 unknown tree species in the Amazon basin alone. Tree species often get grouped together based on appearance, he notes, so new genetic analysis techniques will likely lead to the discovery of even more biodiversity. Sliman wonders how many species will go extinct before scientists describe them. “How many are already known to native peoples in the Amazon — or were known to peoples or cultures who have themselves been made extinct through colonization, disease, or absorption? How many “species” already have dried samples sitting in a cabinet?” he says.

Searching for the new species will inform not only conservation but the basic evolutionary science of how and why species diversify and die out, Silman says. “Just the fact that there are thousands of species of something as common as trees out there that are still left to be discovered,” he adds, “I find pretty inspirational.”