1 . Slat's life began to change after a holiday trip to Greece with his family when he was 16. What he actually saw in the ocean was an awful lot or plastic waste. From that moment on, Slat dived into a project to find a solution to this alarming problem. Struck by the idea of a floating barrier that could collect plastic, he founded his company, The Ocean Cleanup, at the age of 18. Although the idea was named one of the best inventions of 2015 by TIME magazine, he received negative feedback from the specialists in environmental issues.
Slat was not discouraged and saw his mission as a race against time. It is estimated that up to 14 million tons of plastic enter the oceans from land every year. Plastic gradually breaks down into very small pieces called microplastics, which can eventually enter the food chain.
After five and a half years' hard work, the Dutch inventor launched the world's first ocean plastic cleanup system: System 001. The U-shaped pipe, about 609 meters in length, snakes its way out under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific. These floating barriers will capture plastic waste as the ocean currents flow past. Ships will collect the waste and bring it to land for recycling every few months. According to Slat, if all goes to plan, an array of 60 systems could reduce the amount of plastic there by as much as 50 percent by 2025.
However, there remains a problem: What will happen to the plastic brought back to shore from Slat's systems? It's likely that lots of the waste will eventually be recycled into more single-use plastics that end up back in the oceans. That doesn't mean Slat will give up.
1. What contributes to Slat's idea of solving plastic waste in the ocean?| A．A vacation abroad. | B．Negative feedback from the experts. |
| C．Diving deep into the ocean. | D．A floating barrier to collect plastic. |
| A．It will pollute the ocean. | B．It will make the ocean too dirty to swim in. |
| C．It will make it difficult ocean currents to flow. | D．It will be contained in the foods for humans. |
| A．It's the world's best ocean plastic cleanup system. |
| B．It winds its way into the Pacific. |
| C．Ships will capture the plastic waste. |
| D．The amount of plastic will be decreased by a quarter. |
| A．To praise. | B．To warn. | C．To inform. | D．To entertain. |
2 . In recent years, Ethiopia has become a regional leader in solid waste management. Last year, the country transformed the landfill (垃圾填埋场) in Addis Ababa into a new waste-to-energy plant, the first such project on the continent. The plant incinerates up to 1, 400 tonnes of waste every day, about 80 percent of the city's rubbish, supplying the capital with 25 percent of its household electricity needs.
However, despite these important steps, challenges remain in Ethiopia. Although the country has permitted the Basel, Stockholm and Rotterdam conventions, laws and policies for environmentally sound management of hazardous (有害的) wastes are still not effective in pre- venting littering waste illegally.
To help Ethiopia meet these challenges, the Chemicals and Waste Management Program is supporting the country with a three-year project to enhance its capacity for sound management of hazardous wastes.
In the initial stages, a project management unit will be formed, made up of many representatives from government departments and private organizations. This unit will be responsible for reviewing and assessing Ethiopia's current legal system, which, despite numerous advances in recent years, does not specifically target the recycling of hazardous waste. Once legal gaps are identified, the project will seek to update existing policies and strategies.
Many people in Ethiopia are not aware of the possible effect of environmental damage and the need to report such crimes to the police. To resolve this pressing issue, Ethiopia will be conducting a series of capacity-building activities, including creating awareness-raising programs, training trainers and providing equipment.
Ethiopia will also work to establish a national mechanism for chemicals and waste management by engaging government departments and civil society groups. Authorities will also make budgetary provisions (预算拨款) in national, regional and institutional planning to ensure funding for these activities is sustainable even after the project's completion.
1. Which can replace the underlined word “incinerates” in paragraph 1?| A．Produces. | B．Burns. | C．Gathers. | D．Absorbs. |
| A．The relevant laws are not sound. | B．The shortage of workers is severe. |
| C．The pollution level is too high. | D．The funds are not sufficient. |
| A．Restrict their environmental movement. | B．Call on them to start some programs. |
| C．Reward them with budgetary provisions. | D．Raise their environmental awareness. |
| A．Ethiopia is facing serious environmental problems. |
| B．Ethiopia has achieved success in waste management. |
| C．Ethiopia is putting efforts into waste management. |
| D．Ethiopia has reduced environmental pollution levels. |
3 . If you wear contact lenses (隐形眼镜), you might not know the best way to deal with old ones. Washing them down the sink or flushing them down the toilet is not the way to go. Yet one in five people who wear contact lenses do just that. However, the plastic in their lenses can linger (存留), polluting both water and land.
Rolf Halden, an engineer at Arizona State University in Tempe, and his team created an online survey. More than 400 contact lens wearers took part. The questions asked how many got rid of their lenses inappropriately. About 20 percent — one in five — sent their used contact lenses down sink drain or toilet. Assuming all contact lens wearers in the U. S. do that at the same rate, the researchers then calculated how much plastic would be flushed away each year. Their estimate: 6 to 10 metric tons! That's about the weight of two to three adult African forest elephants. Contact lenses are a tiny part of the world's plastic pollution. But the unique plastic used in contact lenses could make them a big concern.
To figure it out, researchers exposed contact lenses to the microbes (微生物) used to clean wastewater in water-treatment plants. These microbes made the plastics begin to fall apart, but they weren't fully broken down. Instead, they created a lot of tiny pieces called microplastics.
Halden worries that these small plastic bits will cause trouble in the food chain. In water, the plastics from contact lenses sink. Animals could view these tiny bits as food. But because the plastic won't provide them with nutrition, this could threaten the health of animals who dined on it.
And that's already happening. Many studies have shown that corals, larval fish and shellfish are mistaking microplastics for food. Over time, they risk accumulating even higher levels of plastic in their bodies. Also the pollution has already shown up in bottled water, sea salt and fish sold for human consumption.
1. Rolf Halden's survey shows that ________.| A．contact lenses have won popularity with Americans |
| B．contact lenses have caused a huge part of plastic pollution |
| C．some contact lens wearers throw away their old lenses improperly |
| D．many contact lens wearers don't wear their lenses in the proper way |
| A．They could be broken down completely. |
| B．They could be processed properly there. |
| C．They couldn't be affected by microbes. |
| D．Some of them became microplastics. |
| A．Tiny pieces are entering oceans. |
| B．Sea creatures are eating microplastics. |
| C．Animals are causing plastic pollution. |
| D．Contact lenses are damaging the environment |
| A．People's eyesight is getting worse and worse. |
| B．Contact lenses must be banned immediately. |
| C．Animals in the sea are lacking in nutrition. |
| D．The impacts microplastic pollution has on human health. |
