1 . Hardware in general, and smartphones in particular, have become a huge environmental and health problem in the Global South’s landfill sites(垃圾填埋场).
Electronic waste (e-waste) currently takes up 5 percent of all global waste, and it is set to increase rapidly as more of us own more than one smartphone, laptop and power bank. They end up in places like Agbogbloshie on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital, Accra. It is the biggest e-waste dump in the world, where 10,000 informal workers walk through tons of abandoned goods as part of an informal recycling process. They risk their health searching for the precious metals that are found in abandoned smartphones.
But Agbogbloshie legally should not exist. The Basel Convention, a 1989 treaty, aims to prevent developed nations from unauthorized dumping of e-waste in less developed countries. The e-waste industry, however, circumvents regulation by exporting e-waste labelled as “secondhand goods” to poor countries like Ghana, knowing full well that it is heading for a landfill site.
A recent report found Agbogbloshie contained some of the most dangerous chemicals. This is not surprising: smart phones contain chemicals like mercury(水银), lead and even arsenic(砷). Reportedly, one egg from a free-range chicken in Agbogbloshie contained a certain chemical which can cause cancer and damage the immune system at a level that’s about 220 times greater than a limit set by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Most worryingly, these poisonous chemicals are free to pollute the broader soil and water system. This should concern us all, since some of Ghana’s top exports are cocoa and nuts.
Some governments have started to take responsibility for their consumers’ waste. For example, Germany has started a project that includes a sustainable recycling system at Agbogbloshie, along with a health clinic for workers. However, governments cannot solve the problem alone, as there is an almost limitless consumer demand for hardware, especially when governments’ green policies are focused on issues like climate change.
Only the manufacturers can fix this. A more economically sustainable and politically possible solution is through encouraging hardware manufacturers to make the repair, reuse and recycling of hardware profitable, or at least cost-neutral.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 2?| A．Electronic waste requires more landfill sites. |
| B．Electronic waste is too complex to get fully recycled. |
| C．Electronic products need to be improved immediately. |
| D．Electronic pollution is a burning question in Agbogbloshie. |
| A．Relaxes. | B．Abolishes. | C．Avoids. | D．Tightens. |
| A．The violation of EFSA’s standards. | B．The threat of polluted food worldwide. |
| C．The lack of diversity in Ghana’s exports. | D．The damage to chicken’s immune system. |
| A．Letting governments take on the main responsibility. |
| B．Reducing customers’ demands for electronic products. |
| C．Governments adjusting their green policies about e-waste. |
| D．Manufacturers’ developing a sustainable hardware economy. |
To pollute or not to pollute? That is the question. In order to survive, we all need to cause pollution. Factories that process the food we eat, clothes we wear, and cars we drive have to cause pollution. The environment has the ability to absorb our waste or the pollution, but its absorption ability has its limits. If the pollution level is higher than what the environment can cope with, then that's the time when pollution is bad. If the pollution level becomes too high, human health can be affected badly. Then, the productivity level of the sick people is low and the economy suffers. The economy suffers not only because of the lost productivity of the people, but also because the government must pay for the damage the pollution has done to its people. This is the reason why the government prefers taxation policy. Imposing (征收) a tax on firms that pollute the environment can be considered a good strategy, as long as the tax covers all the external costs or the cost of the damage the firm has created during production. Taxation, if enforced (执行)really well, can make firms create a technology that may reduce pollution, if they find out that it will be cheaper than continuously paying the tax. The disadvantage of this policy, however, lies in the possibility that some big firms will find the tax cheap and then they will just produce more and pollute the environment more. If other small firms find the tax expensive, thus closing down, their production will be eaten up by those firms which can afford the tax. Therefore, it is important that lawmakers in each country, when deciding to impose a tax on pollutant emissions, first review and analyze very carefully the real cost of the damage.（307words）
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