1 . The essence (本质) of fast fashion is to make clothes inexpensively and quickly, to get new trends and styles into stores and online as soon as possible, and it comes at a high social and environmental cost. Keeping production costs low means they can make their clothes cheap, using cheap labour in unsafe working conditions, and in countries with bad environmental regulations.
Throw-away culture is deeply rooted in our society; three in five of our clothing pieces are thrown out within a year. Fast fashion brands keep the consumers hungry and feeling like they need more by attracting them with newness and convincing the consumers that they need what they’re selling. This only results in increasing textile waste as people no longer want but throw it away.
Criticisms of the fast fashion industry include its negative environmental impact: water pollution, the use of toxic (有毒的) chemicals and increasing levels of textile waste. Textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of clean water globally, after agriculture. Fast fashion companies rely on their products being made cheaply and quickly, so they avoid talking when it comes to being aware of their impact on the environment. Greenpeace’s recent Detox Campaign showed that many brands use toxic and dangerous chemicals in their supply chains, and many of the chemicals are either banned or strictly controlled in lots of countries.
In conclusion, the fast fashion industry has a bad effect on our environment through fast fashion brands’ ecological practices and only continues to make the problem last for a long time in the future through extreme consumerist culture. In order for change to happen, the common people need to open their eyes and take measures to prevent the fast fashion from growing.
1. What’s one of the characteristics of fast fashion?| A．Causing a lot of anxiety. | B．Making people buy old clothes. |
| C．Selling most clothes through stores. | D．Producing clothes quickly. |
| A．They are mainly sold online. | B．They are made in unsafe countries. |
| C．They are made by cheap labour. | D．They save the cost of advertising. |
| A．Natural. | B．Surprising. | C．Absurd. | D．Puzzling. |
| A．Changing fast fashion brands’ working conditions. |
| B．Changing clothes stores’ sales model. |
| C．Introducing stricter laws for factories. |
| D．Raising public awareness of preventing fast fashion. |
2 . Drive through any suburb in the US today, and it’s hard to miss the bins that have become companions to America’s trash cans. Recycling has become commonplace, as people recognize the need to care for the environment. Yet most people’s recycling consciousness extends only as far as paper, bottles, and cans. People seldom find themselves facing the growing problem of e-waste.
E-waste rapidly increases as the techno-fashionable frequently upgrade to the most advanced device and the majority of them end up in landfills(垃圾填埋地). Some people who track such waste say that users throw away nearly 2 million tons of TVs, VCRs, computers, cell phones, and other electronics every day. Unless we can find a safe replacement, this e-waste may get into the ground and poison the water with dangerous toxins(毒素), such as lead, mercury, and arsenic. Burning the waste also dangerously contaminates the air.
However, e-waste often contains reusable silver, gold, and other electrical materials. Recycling these materials reduces environmental problems by reducing both landfill waste and the need to look for such metals, which can destroy ecosystems.
A growing number of states have adopted laws to ban dumping(倾倒)e-waste. Still, less than a quarter of this waste will reach lawful recycling programs. Some companies advertising safe disposal(处置)in fact merely ship the waste to some developing countries, where it still ends up in landfills. These organizations prevent progress by unsafely disposing of waste in an out-of-sight, out-of-mind location.
However, the small but growing number of cities and corporations that do handle e-waste responsibly represents progress toward making the world a cleaner, better place for us all.
1. What can we infer from the first paragraph?| A．Most of America’s trash cans are made of recycled material. |
| B．E-waste cannot be put into trash cans in the US. |
| C．Most Americans have realized the dangers of e-waste. |
| D．Many Americans now have access to recycling bins. |
| A．reduce. | B．heat. | C．absorb. | D．pollute. |
| A．Progress is being made in handling e-waste. |
| B．A growing number of states ship the e-waste to developing countries. |
| C．A large number of cities have begun to handle e-waste responsibly. |
| D．The world will become cleaner by disposing of waste in an out-of-sight location. |
| A．To tell us how to recycle e-waste. |
| B．To talk about the future of e-waste. |
| C．To encourage us to deal with e-waste properly, |
| D．To discuss if it’s necessary to recycle e-waste. |
