2 . As we all know, waste is extremely bad for the environment. Let’s talk about why litter is harmful to our streets and towns, our drinking water, and sea animals.

Waste can have a bad influence on our cities. Cleaning up litter costs US taxpayers (纳税人) and businesses $11.5 billion each year.    1     Litter on the streets can cause road accidents with hundreds of deaths because of it. Areas that have more waste have more crime (犯罪). The litter on the streets sends a message that people don’t care about their neighborhood.

    2     The litter we drop on the ground can pollute rivers, lakes, oceans, and other bodies of water. 60%of water pollution is caused by littering. Waste hurts sea animals.     3     You may think that when you litter, “Oh, this is just one piece of litter. It can’t do any harm. But if every person does that, even if it’s only once, there will still be 7.9 billion pieces of litter in our ocean. Over one million sea animals die every year because of waste.    4    

As you can see, waste is harmful in many ways.    5     We need to take action to avoid unnecessary waste, and pick up every piece of waste we see. We should try to make it a habit because if we don’t, the waste problem will become even worse.

Nowadays, our living conditions are becoming increasingly serious owing to the destruction of our environment. Many plants and     1    (animal) are endangered, and all the food chain has been destroyed,     2     has aroused a wide concern among people.

It is obvious that there are many reasons     3     this phenomenon. Firstly, the overuse of natural resources has a bad effect on     4     balance of natural ecology. Secondly, the population of the world is increasing rapidly, making the world too     5     (crowd) for us to live in. Thirdly, it is the smoke released from factories and cars that     6     (pollute) the environment badly.

Personally, I hold the view that effective measures must be taken     7     (improve) the present situation. To begin with, the government must     8     (sure) pass laws to prevent people from throwing rubbish everywhere, and prevent factories from harming the environment. Besides, as a member of the society, we are bound to do something for environmental     9     (protect), such as planting more trees,     10     (recycle) natural resources and so on. I’m sure that things will be better in the near future if we insist on doing like this.

6 . Recycling is a great way of doing your bit for the environment and helping to protect the earth’s precious resources. However, a new study has revealed that our desire to be sustainable maybe doing more harm than good. According to waste company Biffa, this is because of “wish-cycling” — assuming that items such as disposable coffee cup sand pizza boxes will be recycled if put in the recycling bin. In fact, pollution from those items or other non-recyclables can result in recyclable items that have been put in the correct bin going to landfill. David Heaton, a business director at Biffa, said: “Pollution happens when items are disposed of in the wrong bins or haven’t been cleaned before being recycled.”

Experts at Biffa analyzed the amounts of non-target and non-recyclable materials that entered UK material recycling facilities between 2016 and 2020. It was found that, in 2016, the average pollution rate of recycling waste was 13.4 percent, rising over four years to 17 percent by the end of 2020. This shows that, even as people are becoming more eco-conscious, wish-cycling is increasing both in households and businesses.

The Biffa experts say that one of the best ways to prevent pollution of recycling is to clean recyclable waste before putting it in the bin. They suggest cutting off the top of old pizza boxes and only recycling that part to avoid pollution from the grease (油脂). Check the on-packaging recycling label to check it can actually be recycled When it comes to plastics, Biffa recommends checking the resin code, the number in the plastic triangle, to know whether it should go in the recycling bin. In general, resin codes 1, 2, 4 and 5 are recyclable, while 3, 6 and 7 are not. Larger items, like electronics, furniture and batteries, can also be recycled but often can not go in household recycling bins as they need specialist separating. These will need to be taken to recycling centers or sustainable waste management companies.

“It’s vital as a nation that we get better at effective ‘pre-cycling’— sorting waste correctly before collection to reduce pollution rates,” added Mr. Heaton.

7 . One summer midnight, standing outside a wooden house in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I looked up. The sight of thousands of stars was almost enough to make me, a non-believer, offer a word of gratitude up into the star-filled sky. But to whom? Perhaps to Johan Eklof, author of The Darkness Manifesto.

A bat scientist, Eklof works in the night shadows in western Sweden. His work requires an absolute kind of darkness unpolluted by light. But this category of darkness is threatened. In the 1980s, Eklof tells readers, two-thirds of the churches in Sweden housed bat caves. Not any longer. “Today, this number has been reduced by a third due to light pollution, because the churches all glow brightly in the night.” he writes.

We have all noticed it when driving through any city at night. Empty places are floodlit. The night sky in Hong Kong is 1200 times brighter than an unlit one. Citizens of some large cities, writes Eklof, have never allowed their eyes to adapt to true night vision. But we are only now beginning to understand the effects.

Too much light is incredibly destructive to the complex eco-systems many animals inhabit. It scares away the bats that Eklof studies; reef fish eggs go unhatched; birds forget to even sing.

So how can we deal with the too much light? In 2019, France passed laws limiting how much light can be sent into the sky. In Vienna, Austria, the city’s lights are turned off at 11 p.m. Some measures, like artificial lights that do not reflect light upward, are already within our grasp. “We could just turn it all off, but I guess we don’t want to, because darkness is not safe for everyone.” said Eklof in a recent interview. “So it’s vital we find a middle way.”

Right now, it’s hard to know what that middle way might look like. In 50 years, every city could be lit by environmentally low-impact lights, or we might have completely forgotten what darkness is — the sky filled with little moons.

8 . Most stars are invisible against the overhead glare from city lights. At best, there is only a bit of the Milky Way to see: the combined radiance of a hundred billion stars dims (暗淡) to near-nothingness by bright streetlamps and storefronts.

This is light pollution-human-generated light cast up into the heavens-causing the sky itself to glow and washing out the stars. Astronomers have known for years the situation is bad for observing stars, but it also has real and negative effects on the well-being of many living things-plants, animals and even human beings. More than 80 percent of humanity is affected by light pollution, their view of the skies being stolen away.

All this extra light at night has a large effect on the life under it. Researchers have shown that it has negative impacts on many animals and plants; light pollution disturbs the great migrations of birds, the delicate blossoming of flowers, and even the courtship (求偶) of fireflies, etc. It affects humans as well, possibly causing insomnia (失眠) among many other health problems.

So what can we do about our brightening skies? There is a lot already happening. Groups like the International Dark Sky Association, or IDA, advocate not for more lighting but for more intelligent lighting; smarter street lights that concentrate their light downward is one example. Because these lights offer more efficient light, they save energy, too, eventually paying for themselves. The IDA offers advice on how to contact local authorities to fix better equipment and create ordinances to lower pollution. Many cities in the United States and other countries are certified Dark Sky Communities (DSC), ones that have shown “exceptional devotion to the preservation of the night sky” by discouraging wasteful lighting practices.

Many people don’t even know that they-and their children-are losing this cosmic (宇宙的) experience just over their heads. We need the dark night sky, and it’s up to all of us to make sure it’s still there every time the sun goes down.

The beautiful Li River and its amazing surrounding scenery is one of the most well-known tourist destinations in China. However, the    1     (grow) in tourism meant the increase of the local population as well as     2     number of commercial and industrial enterprises. Chemicals used to increase crop production led to severe water quality issues,     3     (cause) a decrease in the number of fish species.

Microplastics are some of the Earth’s tiniest and     1     (harm) enemies.     2    new study reveals that microplastics have even polluted Alpine snow and Arctic ice. How did the microplastics get there? The study,    3     (publish) this week in the journal Science Advances,assumes that the tiny particles become airborne and, when     4     (sweep) up into the Earth’s atmosphere, can be transported virtually around the globe. If microplastics     5    (find) in original Arctic ice, they’re probably being breathed in, lived in and eaten by animals in other ecosystems.    6     microplastics are being swirled around the atmosphere, the study says, we’re breathing     7    in, as well. And that could have serious health     8     (consequent).“The high MP concentrations detected in snow samples from continental Europe to the Arctic indicate significant air pollution and stress the urgent need for research     9     human and animal health effects     10     (focus) on airborne MPs,” the study says.