1 . One company in Japan is working with farmers in the coastal town of Namie. Nearby is the Fukushima nuclear (原子能的) center, closed since a nuclear disaster there in March 2011.
Jinichi Abe is a local rice farmer. He says people do not want to buy his rice because they worry it is polluted. The farmer has been trying for years to recover from the effects of the disaster.
Now, he has a new way to sell his rice. Tokyo-based company Biomass Resin opened a factory in Namie in November, 2022. It turns locally grown rice into materials that can be made into all kinds of products, including plastic tools, food containers and shopping bags.
“Without growing rice, this town can’t recover, the 85-year-old Abe said, adding that in the years since the disaster, he has tried selling rice as animal feed, among other things. “Even now, we can’t sell it as Fukushima rice,” Abe said. “So having Biomass come is a huge help. We can grow rice without worries.”
In 2011, officials ordered people in the area to retreat when the nuclear disaster happened. In 2017, the government allowed some people to return to their lives in Namie after a cleanup of the area. But about 80 percent of the town’s land remains off-limits and currently about 2,000 people live there, while about 21,000 people lived in Namie before the accident.
Biomass Resin now employs 10 people in Namie, including a 20-year-old who returned, and the company hopes to expand (扩大). It uses only about 50 tons of Namie rice. The rest of the 1,500 tons needed is mainly from elsewhere in Fukushima. But the company says it will buy a larger amount from Abe and his cooperative (合作社) next year, grown on the freshly cleared fields.
1. Why don’t people want to buy Abe’s rice?| A．It tastes terrible. | B．It costs too much. |
| C．It may go bad quickly. | D．It may affect their health. |
| A．Hide. | B．Leave. | C．Volunteer. | D．Relax. |
| A．It has been studying nuclear for years. |
| B．It plans to open more factories in Namie. |
| C．It processes about 1,500 tons of rice a year. |
| D．It decides to help the farmers clear more fields. |
| A．A news report. | B．A book review. |
| C．A farmer’s story. | D．A research paper. |
Researchers say they have found microplastics (微塑料) -tiny pieces of plastic that come as a result of the disposal of industrial waste-deep in the lungs of living
The research, which
In the study, researchers
The study notes
The world produces about 300 million metric tons of plastic a year and about 80% ends
3 . Lagos, a big city in Nigeria, has a population of 20 million, and they can produce between 13, 000 and 15, 000 tonnes of waste every day including 2, 250 tonnes of plastic.
Despite a lot of cleaning, Lagos has no proper system to dispose of rubbish, and not having public awareness of pollution brings a huge environmental challenge. Litter gets washed away by the rains and waterways and ends up in mountains of rubbish on the beaches. Light- house Beach is one of the beaches. It stretches for about 100 kilometers along the Atlantic, all the way to neighboring Benin. Lined with palm trees, the beach could be beautiful if it weren’t for all the pollution.
“It is time that we should raise awareness of keeping the environment clean and clean up all the plastic,” says Chioma Chukwura, who helped pick up rubbish on Lighthouse Beach. At the end of a tiring day, 230 large bin bags were put together on the hot sand, filled with dirty plastic.
“Although the job is challenging,a company will come and pick them up tomorrow. All the plastic here will get reused. Sold for $500 a tonne, the plastic could bring $250 million to Lagos each year, and a cleaner environment could promote the development of the city,” says Owoade Yussuf, organiser of the cleanup.
As the volunteers leave at the end of the day,always just 100 meters is clean. “There is still a lot to do. Maybe we need two months, continuously, to get this cleaned up,” says another volunteer. “We have to find a way to prevent the plastic from coming back. After we’ve finished, I’m sure we may still see litter here when we come back.”
On Lighthouse Beach, the problem isn’t just plastic. Destroyed ships also pollute the beach. With that kind of pollution, even an army of volunteers may struggle. However, with more help, they can still make a difference.
1. How does the author show the severity of rubbish in Lagos in paragraph l?| A．By listing numbers. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By asking questions. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．Pick out. | B．Deal with. | C．Bring about. | D．Adapt to, |
| A．There is no need to recycle the beach litter. |
| B．It is tough to clean all the plastic on the beach. |
| C．It is nccessary to sell the beach litter for money. |
| D．There is no fund to remove all the beach plastic. |
| A．Destroyed Lighthouse Beach in Lagos |
| B．Plastic Pollution is a Worldwide Problem |
| C．Lagos Faces Many Environmental Challenges |
| D．Cleanup Efforts on Lagos’Lighthouse Beach |
