1 . Many of the negative impacts humans have on the environment are visible to the naked eye. Trash washes up on our beaches, the ice caps are visibly shrinking, and smog darkens our skies. But some environmental threat, such as microplastics, are nearly invisible.
The U. S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration classifies microplastics as any piece of plastic less than five millimeters. Some are as small as three microns—half the size of a red blood cell. This comes from a variety of sources, including the microbeads found in cosmetics, paint, tire dust, industrial waste, and clothing.
These tiny fragments can become fixed in animals’ tissue through taking food or breathing. Various marine species, such as deposit-feeding lugworms, are shown to have microplastics in their intestinal tracts (肠道). The production and disposal of microplastics, among other unaware actions by humans, have played a significant role in boosting the worsening of marine ecosystems. But microplastics are not just a problem for marine life. Humans are consuming them too, sometimes through eating seafood containing microplastics.
Microplastics also run uncontrollably in drinking water. A 2017 investigation by Orb Media, which looked at tap water samples from over a dozen countries, found that 83 percent of the samples were contaminated with plastic fibers. Once taken, most of the microplastics stay in our systems forever, and little is known about their long term impact on our health.
Microplastic pollution is not an easy problem to deal with, but there are small changes that you can make to reduce your contribution to the problem. One strategy is to stop fibers before they enter the wastewater stream. Patagonia announced that it will sell the Guppy Friend, a bag that you can place clothing in before tossing it into the wash, which will prevent the fibers from being flushed away. You can also avoid buying any facial scrubs (面部磨砂膏) that use plastic microbeads. Lastly, you can reduce your plastic consumption and waste altogether by buying reusable water bottles and grocery bags, and being sure to always recycle any plastics you come across.
1. Why did the author mention the negative impacts visible to the naked eye?| A．To blame people for their behaviors |
| B．To show the notable threats on earth. |
| C．To stress the urgency of ecology protection. |
| D．To introduce the hidden dangers of microplastics. |
| A．They are so small that can be ignored. | B．They are produced by human deliberately. |
| C．They have a lasting effect on people’s body. | D．They gain attention for the bad influence. |
| A．To promote the sales of a new type of bag. |
| B．To give ways to reduce microplastic presence. |
| C．To tell how to reduce waste and consumption. |
| D．To state the difficulties of decreasing microplastics. |
| A．Many hands make light work. | B．Constant dropping wears the stone. |
| C．Actions speak louder than words. | D．Practice makes perfect. |
2 . Walking along any beach in the world, you will find plastic of some kind on the shoreline, offering a reminder of the throwaway culture of the present day world. Now, a study has sounded a fresh warning on the damage caused to the marine (海洋的) ecosystem due to plastics, which eventually has an effect on human health due to the seafood we eat
In a paper titled “A Growing Plastic Smog”, researchers called on governments around the world to take firm action to handle the “plastic pollution” of the world's oceans.
The plastics break down over time into minute particles(微小颗粒) that cannot be seen by eyes, but find their way into the ocean ecosystem and into the seafood humans consume. “Microplastics are a problem because they are mistaken for food and eaten by small marine animals.” Charlene Trestrail said. “Once eaten, microplastics can damage an animal’s intestines(肠), and give out potentially harmful chemicals inside animals.”
Charlene Trestrail, a researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, said “the study shows just how big the problem is and that much of the blame was placed on the plastics industry for failing to recycle or design for recyclability.”
Paul Harvey, an environmental scientist, said “Globally, we have reached a point where we can no longer ignore the plastic pollution pandemic(流行病) that is infecting our oceans. This research shows us that beach cleanups and citizen science projects that focus on the environmental problems of plastics have little impact on solving the problem.”
Marcus Eriksen, lead author of the study, said that the findings were a “stark warning that we must act now at a global scale”. “Cleanup is useless if we continue to produce plastic at the current/rate, and we have heard about recycling for too long, while the plastic industry refuses any commitments to buy recycled material or design for recyclability. It is time for policymakers, governments and businesses to wake up and take the issue seriously.”
1. What is the third paragraph mainly about ?| A．The effect of chemicals. | B．The harm of microplastics. |
| C．The food of marine animals. | D．The breakdown of microplastics. |
| A．Plastics industry. | B．Government. | C．Tourists. | D．Cleaners |
| A．Useful. | B．Negative | C．Positive | D．Indifferent |
| A．The tendency of plastic pollution. |
| B．The bad effects of plastic pollution. |
| C．The measures to deal with plastic pollution. |
| D．The reason for plastic pollution in the ocean. |
3 . Plastic waste is choking our planet. People are trying to help fix it by recycling, but their efforts aren’t going far enough. Even when plastic producers are held responsible and attempt to solve the problem, it doesn’t always go smoothly. Such has been the case for the company Torus Pak, which produces novel packaging for frozen meals on a large scale.
Like many other black plastic products, the Torus Pak packages used a carbon-based pigment (颜料). This pigment troubles the sorting technology which is used by many recycling facilities, so black plastic usually ends up being thrown away because the machines can’t identify it. Now the company is midway through the complex process of phasing out that pigment and switching that pigment to one that doesn’t use carbon.
But that doesn’t mean the problem is solved, for the recycling rate at the waste facility itself is not encouraging. Your discarded plastic may end up in a landfill even if you send it to be recycled. Worldwide, only about nine percent of all the plastic waste has been recycled, which amounts to less than 600 million tons out of over 6 billion. While one might assume the proportion of plastic being recycled is on the increase due to improved tech and increased public awareness of environmental protection, it’s actually become even lower in many places in recent years.
“The world wasn’t always flooded with single-use plastic products,” said Lisa Ramsden, senior plastic campaigner for Greenpeace USA. “We know how to live without them. We’ve just got used to a convenience culture that relies so heavily on them.”
The solution is obvious. To get out of this habit, we should stop using so much plastic, starting with many of the items we use just once for a few minutes. Companies need to shift toward using more refillable and reusable containers, and packaging made from materials that are less harmful to the environment. Governments must mandate (强制执行) such changes a goal we’re now finally inching closer to every day.
1. What is the problem with Torus Pak packages?| A．They are expensive for customers. |
| B．Their production process is complex. |
| C．Their pigment is hardly appealing. |
| D．They are hard to define recyclable. |
| A．The reason for recycling plastic waste. |
| B．The potential of recycling plastic waste. |
| C．The outcome of recycling plastic waste. |
| D．The objective of recycling plastic waste. |
| A．Advancing recycling technology. |
| B．Reducing the use of plastic products. |
| C．Setting higher environmental goals. |
| D．Making some stricter relevant laws. |
| A．Recycling fail to solve plastic pollution. |
| B．A company contributes a lot to recycling. |
| C．Great changes happen in recycling plastic. |
| D．Plastic pollution is increasingly worsening. |
4 . Southern California’s Catalina Island is a popular destination for nature lovers. It is reachable by boat from Los Angeles and San Diego. Most of the small island is a government-protected wild area. But, a report last October in the Los Angeles Times newspaper raised public concern about the water surrounding Catalina. The newspaper discovered that industrial companies for years had been dumping (倾倒) the insect poison DDT into the ocean near Catalina. The practice began in the 1940s and ended in the 1970s.
The newspaper report led to a search and study of the area by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego (UCSD). The research team discovered about 25,000 large containers, below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The scientists suspected the containers held DDT, and other chemicals used to make the poison.
Eric Terrill, who led the Scripps program that worked on the project, said the finding was a surprise as the containers were spread over a very large area. The Scripps examination also showed the companies responsible for the chemical dump disobeyed rules about where to place the containers.
The researchers mapped about 15,000 hectares of ocean floor where past studies had shown evidence of poisonous chemicals. The area lies between coastal Los Angeles and Catalina. “The long-term effect on ocean life and humans is still unknown, and needs extensive study,” said Lihini Aluwihare, a member of the Scripps program. But, in 2015,she co-wrote another study that found high amounts of DDT and other chemicals in the fat of bottle nose dolphins. Aluwihare said some studies among small groups showed that DDT-linked health problems have been passed from parents to children.
1. What can we know about Catalina Island?| A．It’s the smallest island off Los Angeles. | B．Various chemical plants are still there. |
| C．No man has ever set foot on the island. | D．It’s a good option to explore nature. |
| A．It’s an illegal activity. | B．It lasted half a century. |
| C．It’s caused by an accident. | D．It poses no effect on wildlife. |
| A．Many dolphins were poisoned to death. | B．Further research should be conducted. |
| C．Her previous study was a great success. | D．Parents tended to get recovered soon. |
| A．How to Respond to Water Pollution | B．What to Be Done to Save Ocean Life |
| C．Shocking DDT Dump Around Catalina | D．Breathtaking Views in Southern California |
5 . 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. |
6 . City air is in a sorry state. It is dirty and hot. Outdoor pollution kills 4.2 million people a year, according to the World Health Organization. Concrete and blacktop, meanwhile, absorb the sun’s rays rather than reflecting them back into space, and also take the place of plants which would otherwise cool things down by transpiration. The never-ending spread of buildings and roads thus turns urban areas into heat islands, discomforting residents and worsening dangerous heatwaves, which are in any case likely to become more frequent as the planet warms.
A possible answer to the twin problems is trees. Their leaves may destroy at least some chemical pollutants and they certainly trap airborne particulate matter, which is then washed to the ground by rain. And trees cool things down. Besides transpiration, they provide shade. Their leaves have, after all, developed to block sunlight.
To cool an area effectively, though, trees must be planted in quantity. In 2009, researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that American cities need 40% tree coverage to cut urban heat back meaningfully. Unfortunately, not all cities — and especially not those now springing up in the world’s poor and middle-income countries — are blessed with parks, private gardens or even decorative street trees in sufficient numbers. And the problem is likely to get worse. At the moment, 55% of people live in cities. By 2050 that share is expected to reach 68%.
Some botanists believe they have at least a partial solution to this lack of urban vegetation. It is to plant very small simulacra of natural forests, ecologically engineered for rapid growth, Over the course of a career that began in the 1950s, Akira Miyawaki, the team leader and a plant ecologist at Yokohama National University in Japan, have developed a way to do this starting with even the most unpromising and in-bad-condition areas.
The method originated in Japan and was later introduced to other Asian countries. As it has become known, the Miyawaki method is finding increasing prevalence around the world. In Europe, Belgium; France and the Netherlands are all home to Miyawaki forests. Dr Miyawaki’s insight was to deconstruct and rebuild the process of ecological succession, by which bare lands develop naturally into mature forests.
1. What are the twin problems in the text?| A．Air pollution and heatwaves. | B．Lack of water and green space. |
| C．Bad weather and road conditions. | D．High-rise buildings and traffic jams. |
| A．Paragraph 2. | B．Paragraph 3. | C．Paragraph 4. | D．Paragraph 5. |
| A．Return. | B．Threat. | C．Trade. | D．Favour. |
| A．What mature forests are. | B．How bare land comes into being. |
| C．How the Miyawaki method works. | D．Why the Miyawaki method is popular. |
7 . Researchers from London’s Queen Mary University studied how participants were affected by pollution based on where they live. In the journal Circulation on Friday, the scientists revealed that air pollution can harm the heart to the point where it resembles (类似) the early stages of heart failure.
According to Emory Healthcare, deaths have decreased around 12 percent per decade on average over the past 50 years, but 287,000 people die frorn heart failure each year. There are more hospitalizations from heart failure each year than all cancers combined.
In this study, the scientists examined information from 4,000 participants that were in the UK Biobank study. Volunteers had blood tests, health scans and heart MRIs, which measured the function, size and weight of their hearts. They also recorded their lifestyle, health record and where they’ve lived.
The team found participants had larger right and left ventricles (心室) in the heart when they lived closer to busy roads and were exposed to nitrogen dioxide(NOz), which enters the air when fuel is burned. The right and left ventricles are crucial for pumping blood. They were healthy but resembled the ventricles in early-stage heart failure. The scientists found that the higher the exposure to the pollutants, the greater the changes in the heart.
“Air pollution should be seen as a modifiable risk factor,” Dr. Nay Aung, who led the data analysis of the study, said in a statemnent from Queen Mary University. “The public all need to be aware of their exposure when they think about their heart health, just like they think about their blood pressure and their weight.”
Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation said in the statement from Queen Mary University, “We can’t expect people to move home to avoid air pollution, so government and public bodies must act right now to make all areas safe and protect the population from these harm.”
1. What is the finding of the study?| A．Air pollution causes many people to die. |
| B．People have big problems of heart health. |
| C．People’s houses have a great effect on the heart. |
| D．Air pollution makes our hearts at risk of heart failure. |
| A．It can be cured easily. | B．It remains a serious threat. |
| C．It’s the most common illness. | D．It causes people to suffer cancers. |
| A．They had many health problems. | B．Their ventricles worked better. |
| C．Their hearts were out of danger. | D．The size of their hearts was bigger. |
| A．Moving to safer areas. | B．Living far away from crowds. |
| C．Taking notice of air pollution. | D．Taking blood pressure regularly. |
8 . Catch your reusable bag and kiss your plastic bags goodbye. Plastic waste is on its way out, thanks to these governmental bans from around the world.
From Indiana to Maine, governments at all levels in the US are forcing bans and improving recycling. People are shopping smarter and companies are doing better to ensure the protection of our environment. Slowly but surely, the world is entering a brighter future as more and more countries follow. But there’s still a lot of work to be done—or undone.
Since the 1950s, researchers say that about more than 8.3 billion tons of plastic has been produced. And 60% of that waste has ended up in the environment. That number has increased quickly over the years. For example, it was recorded that the world’s plastic production doubled from 1976 (50 million tons) to 1989 (100 million tons). It was highest at 368 million in 2019 before decreasing to 367 million in 2020.
A million tons decrease of plastic production is not enough to deal with the rising pressures plastic puts into the environment. We still do not know how long it takes for plastic to breakdown. It means that about 12 million tons of plastic waste that entered the ocean in 2010 is still breaking into micro plastics and filling up the stomachs of birds and sea animals. The plastic going into our environment is not going away. While recent studies of plastic-eating enzymes and bacteria offer some hope for the future of plastic waste management, the best way to deal with our environmental stress is through decrease.
In 2020, New York City began to ban plastic bags. But this wasn’t the first plastic bag ban in a US state. In fact, the US wasn’t even the first country to introduce this idea. Back in 2002, Bangladesh became the first country to implement a plastic bag ban. Since then, other countries have followed, introducing their own ways to fight with the continuing plastic bags.
1. What do we know about plastic waste?| A．We have completely cleaned it up | B．It is hardly increasing all over the world. |
| C．We have done nothing to deal with it. | D．There is a long way to solve the problem of it. |
| A．More than 8.3 billion tons. | B．About 5 billion tons. |
| C．About 100 million tons. | D．Less than 368 million tons. |
| A．It doesn’t take long to breakdown it | B．Sea animals can be eating most of it. |
| C．Some enzymes and bacteria help a lot. | D．Cutting plastic waste down is still the best way. |
| A．Carry out. | B．Keep up. | C．Look at. | D．Take away. |
9 . How do you deal with plastic bags from the supermarket? Throw them away or reuse them? How about eating them?
Indian company EnviGreen has made a bag with natural ingredients (成分). It looks and feels just like plastic, but can be broken down easily. The bags bring no harm to the environment. Both humans and animals can safely eat them.
EnviGreen founder Ashwath Hedge spent four years doing experiments with a combination of 12 natural ingredients. They include potato, corn, vegetable oil and banana. He made the ingredients into liquid and used the liquid to make the bag. Although the EnviGreen bag is about 35 percent more expensive than a common plastic bag, it has many advantages. According to the Wall Street Journal, it takes 1,000 years for common plastic bags to break down. But an EnviGreen bag can naturally break down in less than 180 days. It also breaks down in less than a day in water, and in about 15 seconds in boiling water. Hedge was happy to show it in his interview with The Better India. In the interview, he put an EnviGreen bag in water and ate it with a smile.
According to India’s Minister of State for Atmosphere, Forest and Weather Change, the country produces more than 15,000 tons of plastic waste every day. But only 9,000 tons are processed. In China, 3 billion plastic bags are used every day. Maybe the EnviGreen bag could be a solution to the world problem of plastic pollution.
1. Why is the EnviGreen bag eatable?| A．Because it looks like plastic. |
| B．Because it can be broken down easily. |
| C．Because it consists of natural ingredients. |
| D．Because it does no harm to the environment. |
| A．¥ 0.85. | B．¥ 0.675. | C．¥ 0.65. | D．¥ 0.475. |
| A．It took him less than four years to succeed. |
| B．He made a special liquid to form the material. |
| C．He combined 4 kinds of food to create the EnviGreen bag. |
| D．The EnviGreen bag can naturally break down in 15 seconds. |
| A．Plastic pollution can be controlled with combined efforts. |
| B．India has benefited a lot from adopting the EnviGreen bag. |
| C．Chinese government has paid attention to plastic pollution. |
| D．Plastic pollution is a severe problem in some developing countries. |
10 . James Sulikowski, from the Shark and Fish Conservation Lab at the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at Arizona State University, was one of the scientists who captured the seven foot porbeagle (鼠鲨) shark in the Atlantic.
In a Facebook post, the lab said the shark had been growing for years with a plastic strap around its gills. “Photos ... show the female shark’s head was slowly being sliced off by the unyielding strap,” it said. “The piece of circular plastic had become lodged around her neck when she was younger. As she grew, it began to cut through her skin into her muscle, if we had not removed it, she surely would have died.”
In a message to Newsweek, Sulikowski said the strap was probably one that would normally go around a bait box. “The box went overboard, and the porbeagle shark, when younger, ate the fish in the box,” he said. “While doing so, [the] strap got wrapped around the sharks head. As the shark grew, the strap dug into the shark’s flesh. If we didn’t remove it, the shark would have surely died.”
The photos of the shark being strangled follow the discovery of a dead minke whale that had been killed by a piece of fishing line. The male minke whale was found on a beach in Dennis, Massachusetts. The fishing line had become “wrapped around its head and through its mouth, creating a bridle,” the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said in a Facebook post.
The IFAW said the initial autopsy (验尸) suggests the whale died from injuries caused by the entanglement. It also said there were signs of possible infection. “The entanglement likely contributed to the cause of death, though additional lab results are pending.”
The problem of plastic pollution in the ocean is getting worse. It is thought there is currently over 150 million metric tons of plastic in the world’s oceans, and more and more is entering every year. A report published earlier this year estimated the amount of plastic entering the ocean every year will have doubled by 2040, amounting to 600 million metric tons.
More than one million seabirds and 100,000 marine animals are killed every year by plastic waste. “Plastic in all forms are an issue,” Sulikowski said. “We need more research to understand the extent of the long term effects of this type of pollution.”
1. What do you know about the shark?| A．Her head was sliced off. |
| B．The strap cut through her skin when she was younger. |
| C．She was in more danger as she grew. |
| D．Scientists had not removed the strap. |
| A．the entanglement. | B．a piece of fishing line. |
| C．infection. | D．not decided. |
| A．The present amount of plastic in the ocean is about 300 million tons. |
| B．The next 20 years will see an increase of 450 million tons of plastic in the ocean. |
| C．More than 150 million metric tons of plastic is going into ocean every year. |
| D．About 300 million tons of plastic is going into ocean every year. |
| A．Scientists saved a shark whose head was being sliced off. |
| B．The death of a whale and a shark worried IFAW. |
| C．Plastic pollution is threatening certain animals’ lives. |
| D．Plastic pollution is getting worse and worse. |
