E-TRASH
Nowadays, every household produces electronic trash (or e-trash)—an old TV or computer, a printer, or an out-of-date cell phone. But when we throw these everyday items away, not many of us know
In particular, Essick found that a lot of e-trash goes to Ghana. There, he saw
As a result of his journey, Peter Essick thinks it’s important to stop
2 . Pollution
Pollution happens when the environment is dirtied, by waste, chemicals, and other harmful substances(物质).Pollution is a problem all over the world. But it is especially bad in large cities with a lot of industries and cars.
Wildfires, volcanoes, and industrial chemicals cause some air pollution. But most air pollution comes from burning fossil fuels (矿物燃料)These include coal, oil and natural gas. The burning of fossil fuels may release harmful gases. Air pollution may cause such diseases cancer and asthma. It also leads to polluted rain that can harm living things
Causes of water pollution are easy to see. People dump(倾倒) garbage and dirty water into river, lakes and oceans. Factories or cities sometimes release poisonous chemicals, and other wastes into water. These chemicals may make the groundwater unfit to drink.
Littering, or throwing garbage on the ground, is a form of land pollution. Litter can destroy the habitats of plants and animals. The buildup of dangerous chemicals in the ground is another form of land pollution. The chemicals may come from farms or factories.
Many governments, environmental groups, and ordinary people are working to control pollution. Governments have passed laws to keep people from releasing dangerous chemicals into the environment
A.Farmers use chemical to help crops grow. |
B.This type of pollution may be seen in big cities. |
C.They also can harm fish and other forms of life. |
D.These chemicals can spread to plants and animals. |
E.In addition, air pollution may be a cause of global warming. |
F.There are three main forms of pollution: air, water, and land. |
G.Some companies and people are trying to use fewer fossil fuels. |
3 . In our modern world, when something wears out, we throw it away and buy a new one. The
How did we
Another cause is our
Our appetite for new products also
All around the world, we can see the
Maybe there is another way out. We need to repair our possessions
A.key | B.reason | C.project | D.problem |
A.gifts | B.rubbish | C.debt | D.products |
A.face | B.become | C.observe | D.change |
A.hide | B.control | C.replace | D.withdraw |
A.Thanks to | B.As to | C.Except for | D.Regardless of |
A.safe | B.funny | C.cheap | D.powerful |
A.love | B.lack | C.prevention | D.division |
A.sensitive | B.kind | C.brave | D.busy |
A.ways | B.places | C.jobs | D.friends |
A.donate | B.receive | C.produce | D.preserve |
A.adapts | B.returns | C.responds | D.contributes |
A.tired of | B.addicted to | C.worried about | D.ashamed for |
A.newer | B.stronger | C.higher | D.larger |
A.pick up | B.pay for | C.hold onto | D.throw away |
A.advantages | B.purposes | C.functions | D.consequences |
A.show | B.record | C.decrease | D.measure |
A.technology | B.environment | C.consumers | D.brands |
A.However | B.Otherwise | C.Therefore | D.Meanwhile |
A.by | B.in favour of | C.after | D.instead of |
A.spending | B.collecting | C.repairing | D.advertising |
4 . Lagos, a big city in Nigeria, has a population of 20 million, and they can produce between 13, 000 and 15, 000 tonnes of waste every day including 2, 250 tonnes of plastic.
Despite a lot of cleaning, Lagos has no proper system to dispose of rubbish, and not having public awareness of pollution brings a huge environmental challenge. Litter gets washed away by the rains and waterways and ends up in mountains of rubbish on the beaches. Light- house Beach is one of the beaches. It stretches for about 100 kilometers along the Atlantic, all the way to neighboring Benin. Lined with palm trees, the beach could be beautiful if it weren’t for all the pollution.
“It is time that we should raise awareness of keeping the environment clean and clean up all the plastic,” says Chioma Chukwura, who helped pick up rubbish on Lighthouse Beach. At the end of a tiring day, 230 large bin bags were put together on the hot sand, filled with dirty plastic.
“Although the job is challenging,a company will come and pick them up tomorrow. All the plastic here will get reused. Sold for $500 a tonne, the plastic could bring $250 million to Lagos each year, and a cleaner environment could promote the development of the city,” says Owoade Yussuf, organiser of the cleanup.
As the volunteers leave at the end of the day,always just 100 meters is clean. “There is still a lot to do. Maybe we need two months, continuously, to get this cleaned up,” says another volunteer. “We have to find a way to prevent the plastic from coming back. After we’ve finished, I’m sure we may still see litter here when we come back.”
On Lighthouse Beach, the problem isn’t just plastic. Destroyed ships also pollute the beach. With that kind of pollution, even an army of volunteers may struggle. However, with more help, they can still make a difference.
1. How does the author show the severity of rubbish in Lagos in paragraph l?A.By listing numbers. | B.By giving examples. |
C.By asking questions. | D.By making comparisons. |
A.Pick out. | B.Deal with. | C.Bring about. | D.Adapt to, |
A.There is no need to recycle the beach litter. |
B.It is tough to clean all the plastic on the beach. |
C.It is nccessary to sell the beach litter for money. |
D.There is no fund to remove all the beach plastic. |
A.Destroyed Lighthouse Beach in Lagos |
B.Plastic Pollution is a Worldwide Problem |
C.Lagos Faces Many Environmental Challenges |
D.Cleanup Efforts on Lagos’Lighthouse Beach |
5 . Naturalist Enzo Suma, who is now 40, lives in Puglia, a region in southern Italy whose long coastline faces the Adriatic Sea. Floating waste accumulates in this relatively enclosed part of the Mediterranean, unlike the open ocean, where the waste tends to be spread over a vast area. Feeling concerned about that, Suma makes it a habit to pick up the washed-up waste along the shore, especially after big winter storms.
One day, Suma was walking along the beach near his home when he discovered a bottle of Coke. Suma noticed on the bottle that the price, clearly printed on the bottom, was in lire, a currency (货币) that hadn’t been used in Italy since it was replaced by the euro in 2002. Could a plastic container have well survived in the Mediterranean, he wondered, for about two decades?
That led him to founding the Archeoplastica museum. It has a collection of about 500 unique pieces recovered from Italian shores and the Coke bottle is the first one of them. All collection demonstrates the unsettling life force of plastic waste in the environment. “Seeing that a product people may have used 30, 40, or 50 years ago remains still unchanged, you’ll feel different. It’s a great shock,” Suma said to a reporter. So Suma often exhibits selected pieces from the Archeoplastica collection at local schools around his hometown of Ostuni.
“The playful side of the work allows you to arrive at the less beautiful side of things,” Suma acknowledged. “Plastic is a kind of useful substance. But it’s unthinkable that a water bottle, made from a material designed to last so long, can be used for just a few days—or even minutes—before becoming garbage. Clean the beaches. Clean the oceans. Recycle. But if we are still throwing out plastics, none of those are going to be long-term solutions.”
1. What’s Suma’s concern about his living place?A.Its long coastline is disappearing. | B.Big storms frequently hit the area. |
C.Floating waste spreads over a vast area. | D.The waste pollution on shore is worsening. |
A.They have a history of more than half a century. |
B.They were quite valuable before turning into waste. |
C.They’re more like educational exhibits than garbage. |
D.They have stronger life force than ordinary plastic products. |
A.Creative, devoted and socially responsible. | B.Enthusiastic, ambitious and adventurous. |
C.Generous, cautious and humorous. | D.Curious, efficient and playful. |
A.The birth of plastics has greatly served humans. |
B.The key to tackling the plastic pollution is to stop littering. |
C.The plastic problem can be solved by cleaning and recycling. |
D.People should be more aware of the powerful functions of plastics. |
6 . The idea of turning recycled plastic bottles into clothing is not new. During the last five years, a large number of clothing companies, businesses and environmental organizations have started turning plastics into fabric to deal with plastic pollution. But there’s a problem with this method. Research now shows that microfibers could be the biggest source of plastic in the sea.
Dr. Mark Browne in Santa Barbara, California, has been studying plastic pollution and microfibers for 10 years now. He explains that every time synthetic clothes go into a washing machine, a large number of plastic fibers fall off. Most washing machines can’t collect these microfibers. So every time the water gets out of a washing machine, microfibers are entering the sewers and finally end up in the sea.
In 2011, Browne wrote a paper stating that a single piece of synthetic(合成的) clothing can produce more than 1, 900 fibers per wash. Browne collected samples from seawater and freshwater sites around the world, and used a special way to examine each sample. He discovered that every single water sample contained microfibers.
This is bad news for a number of reasons. Plastic can cause harm to sea life when eaten. Studies have also shown that plastic can absorb other pollutants.
Based on this evidence, it may seem surprising that companies and organizations have chosen to turn plastic waste into clothing as an environmental “solution.” Even though the science has been around for a while, Browne explains that he's had a difficult time getting companies to listen. When he asked well-known clothing companies to support Benign by Design-his research project that seeks to get clothes that have a bad effect on humans and the environment out of the market, Browne didn’t get a satisfying answer. Only one women’s clothing company, Eileen Fisher, offered Browne funding.
1. What has happened during the past five years?A.Fabric has become much stronger. | B.Plastic pollution has been less serious. |
C.Many plastic bottles have been reused. | D.Microfibers have been greatly improved. |
A.It is adding microfibers to the clothes. |
B.It is worsening environmental problems. |
C.It is making synthetic clothes last longer. |
D.It is doing great damage to washing machines. |
A.It has achieved great success. | B.It hasn’t got anything done. |
C.It is known to very few people. | D.It is facing some difficulties. |
A.It’s important to learn to recycle |
B.It’s never easy to solve pollution problems |
C.Recycled plastic clothing: solution or pollution? |
D.Are human beings moving forward or backward? |
7 . Plastic is low-cost and long-lasting. It is not easily degraded(降解) because natural degradation processes can’t deal with its chemical components(成分). It takes in other ocean-present harmful substances. These chemical and dangerous components are gradually got into the atmosphere with additives such as color, which turns out to be really harmful when the plastic breaks down.
The design and development of new plastic products was sped up after World War II. Life without plastic seemed impossible in the modern age. But even though plastic was quite convenient, the dark side of it was seen as people began to enjoy the throw-away community. Many plastic products, such as plastic bags, have a lifetime of a few minutes to hours. However, they’ll stay in the environment for hundreds of years. We are destroying the very world that nurtured us.
Just 9% of plastic has been recycled and 12% burnt after production rose in the 1950s, which leave s about 79% of the 8.3 billion tons produced sitting in landfills(垃圾填埋场) or damaging our fields, oceans, and waterways. And each year the plastic ends up as contaminants. So to beat plastic pollution, we need to work together.
While plastic burning reduces the amount of waste dumped into oceans and lands, harmful gases are still produced, which also leads to greenhouse gases. However, if we make a firm decision and use modern waste management methods, we will be able to create a safe and healthy world. It is high time that we as responsible global citizens, took on the duty of protecting our environment and made great effort in saving our mother earth, instead of just leaving everything to our government. So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s make a promise to successfully deal with plastic waste and protect our world from all possible risks.
1. What is Paragraph 1 mainly about?A.The harm of plastic. | B.The convenience of plastic. |
C.The protection of plastic. | D.The use of plastic. |
A.Happy. | B.Worried. | C.Excited. | D.Relaxed. |
A.Things that cause pollution. | B.Things that produce plastic. |
C.Things that cost money. | D.Things that help people. |
A.A short story. | B.A speech. | C.A newspaper. | D.A notice. |
8 . The tradition of giving gifts didn’t start with the modern holidays we celebrate. Many ancient cultures celebrated holidays with the exchange of gifts. People who love to give gifts often can’t wait until it’s time for the recipients to open their gifts. If you’ve ever been given a gift, you know that part of the fun is the curiosity that builds as you wonder what the gift is.
The wish to hide the identity of a gift until just the right moment led people to wrap gifts long, long ago. Historians believed wrapping gifts in paper probably started not long after paper was invented thousands of years ago.
Wrapping paper like what we use today, though, is a much more recent invention. More than 100 years ago, gifts were usually wrapped in heavy brown paper. Before that, cloth was often used. The technology to mass-produce wrapping paper didn’t come along until the early 1900s. The first American gift wrap company— Hy-Sill Manufacturing Inc. — was founded by Eli Hyman and Morris Silverman in 1903. It wasn’t as easy to wrap presents back then as it is today, though, because adhesive tape (胶带) wasn’t invented until 1930.
Over the years, wrapping paper has developed into what we see in stores each holiday season. But scientists say that the United States alone produces an extra 5 million tons of waste over the holidays, most of which is from wrapping paper and shopping bags. To cut down on this waste, some people carefully unwrap presents, so that the wrapping paper can be reused. Others have started to use reusable gift bags instead of wrapping paper.
1. What is the interesting part of people giving a gift?A.Hiding their gifts and their feelings. |
B.Giving the recipients a surprise. |
C.Letting the recipients open gifts at once. |
D.Following a century-old tradition. |
A.People didn’t know wrapping paper until 1903. |
B.Heavy brown paper has been used to wrap gifts for 100 years. |
C.Technology made wrapping paper widely available. |
D.Adhesive tape was first created by gift wrap companies. |
A.The future of reusable gift bags. |
B.The waste produced by Americans. |
C.Wrapping paper’s influence on the environment. |
D.People’s admiration for wrapping paper. |
A.The popularity of wrapping gifts. |
B.The start of wrapping gifts in paper. |
C.The problems caused by wrapping paper. |
D.The story behind wrapping paper. |
9 . Natural selection is the process by which one type of animal within a species grows or develops well because of certain features that make it more likely(可能的) to live than others in its group. The history of the peppered moth (灰蛾) is an example of the natural selection process.
In nineteenth-century England, certain types of peppered moths were able to better blend (融合) into their surroundings. During that time period, great changes were happening in Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was part of this change, and with it came air pollution. Natural selection often takes hundreds or even thousands of years to happen. For the peppered moth, this process happened comparatively(相对地) quickly.
At the beginning of the Industrial Age, most peppered moths in England were light-colored and covered with black markings, although a few moths had dark-colored wings. Because the light-colored moths blended into the light-colored bark on the trees, they could not be easily seen by birds that would eat them. As the air grew more polluted, however, tree trunks became covered with soot (煤烟) and became darker. The light-colored moths became easy for birds to see against the dark tree trunks. Since the dark-colored moths now had the advantage, their numbers grew. Within 50 years, the peppered moth went from being mostly light-colored to being mostly dark-colored.
In the twentieth century, the air cleared up, and the peppered moth population changed again. As tree trunks lightened because of less soot in the air, light-colored moths once again had an advantage. Their numbers increased as soot levels dropped. Depending on their environment, the coloration of the moths helped them to be “naturally selected” to survive(生存).
1. What do we know about the peppered moth’s natural selection process?A.It was a good example of environmental protection. |
B.The soot levels in England did not affect it. |
C.This type of color change was typical for moths. |
D.The length of time was unusual. |
A.Both kinds of moths preferred the dark-colored trees. |
B.Birds failed to see light-colored moths. |
C.There were more light-colored moths than dark-colored moths in the beginning. |
D.The color of moths was unimportant. |
A.Birds would eat fewer moths. |
B.Light-colored moths would disturb people’s life. |
C.Moths would not be able to stay alive. |
D.The population of dark-colored moths would increase. |
A.the surrounding environment may affect some peppered moths’ survival |
B.birds preferred to eat dark-colored moths than to light-colored ones |
C.different types of peppered moths liked different kinds of tree trunk |
D.birds were dangerously affected by the soot levels |
10 . Vitamin B could help lessen the effects of the most dangerous type of air pollution,according to a new study published recently. In the first study of its kind,a team of international researchers looked at the damage caused by one of the pollutants that has the most severe impact on health: PM2.5.
Particulate matter,or PM,is a type of air pollutant consisting of small particles of different sizes. PM2.5 has a diameter of fewer than 2.5 micrometers,about 30 times smaller than a human hair. These particles are so small that they can go into our respiratory system (呼吸系统), resulting in lung and systemic inflammation (炎症) and stress.
The team found that something as simple as a daily vitamin B supplement could potentially reduce the impact of the tiny particles on the human body,although they stressed that the research was in its early stages and the sample size was small.
For this study,10 volunteers were initially exposed to clean air and given a placebo (安慰剂) to check their responses. The group then took another placebo for four weeks before being exposed to heavily polluted air from downtown Toronto,where an estimated 1,000 cars pass every hour. The bad air was delivered to the volunteers through an “oxygen-type” face mask. The experiment was then repeated,with each volunteer taking a vitamin B supplement daily made up of 2.5 mg of folic acid,50 mg of vitamin B6,and 1 mg of vitamin B12. B6 can be found in liver,chicken and nuts,and B12 in fish,meat,eggs,milk and some cereals.
The researchers found that four weeks of vitamin B supplements reduced the damage of PM2.5 exposure by 28%-76%. The results highlight how prevention at an individual level could be used to fight the harmful effects of PM2.5.
1. Why is PM2.5 harmful to our health?A.It pollutes and poisons the air. | B.It is too much to be got rid of. |
C.It carries viruses and diseases. | D.It is easily breathed in and damages our body. |
A.The process of the research was not scientific. |
B.This kind of research has been done many times. |
C.Further studies are needed to confirm their findings. |
D.Vitamin B is hard to obtain in people’s daily life. |
A.International researchers have a new finding. |
B.Vitamin B could reduce the damage of PM2.5. |
C.Particulate matter does great harm to our health. |
D.Emission control and regulation are badly needed. |
A.in a science journal | B.on a government website |
C.in a fashion magazine | D.in a medical textbook |