话题16 自然、世界与环境(人口与环保)
主题语篇阅读
Ⅰ.阅读理解
A [2019·丰台一模]
It’s big, it’s nasty but it’s more than just a hole in the ground. Some landfills take in 2,000 tons of trash a day but America’s largest landfill takes in that amount each hour, which will be full in two to three years.
Garbage problem has been a long-standing issue. Volunteer students at the University of Arizona in the U.S. started the Garbage Project. They aimed at learning the influence of humans’ activities on the environment by studying the garbage.
One important thing the students learned was that the garbage in landfills disappeared very slowly. That was surprising to the students, as well as to many scientists who had predicted that about 70% of the garbage in landfills would break down naturally and quickly. From the landfills, students even found newspapers twenty years ago and forty-year-old hot dogs.
The Garbage Project also discovered that what people say they do was often very different from what they actually did. The volunteer students asked people what they bought, ate and drank, and then the students compared this to what people threw away. For some reason, the two didn’t match. For example, the students found much more empty bottles of beer than people said they drank.
Information from the Garbage Project has helped us to see how much garbage we actually put in landfills. The students are hopeful that this will encourage us to find better ways to dispose (处置) of our garbage.
Of course, the best way to dispose of garbage depends on what kind of garbage it is: regular garbage, hazardous materials or recyclables, such as newspapers, glass bottles and some metals. Regular garbage goes to regular landfills. Hazardous materials, on the other hand, contain poisonous chemicals or metals. They shouldn’t go into regular landfills. For example, waste batteries can pollute the soil and groundwater, which need to be recycled properly.
It’s necessary to reduce garbage from the source. With the improvement of living standards, people use too many plastic products only once before throwing them away, especially as online shopping becomes more popular. We can start reducing garbage by using cloth shopping bags and green delivery packages.
Unfortunately, recycling is expensive. It takes time and special treatment. However, in Japan, people recycle garbage so carefully that even plastic bottles and their caps go into different bins. Positive effects present gradually. In the last five years, the Japanese city of Kamikatsu has raised its rate of recycled waste to 80 percent.
It is a matter of great urgency and we must go into action now. There are many things that ordinary people can do to make less garbage. If everyone does the same, we will make our living environment safer and better.
1.According to the passage, students of the Garbage Project discovered that . ( )
A.people knew what they actually threw away
B.garbage disappeared as scientists predicted
C.students collected newspapers for research
D.garbage was too much and lasted longer
2.The underlined word “hazardous” in Paragraph 6 probably means “ ”. ( )
A.wet B.common
C.dangerous D.burnable
3.What can we learn from the passage? ( )
A.Disposing of the garbage properly will make a difference.
B.Adding more landfills helps solve garbage problems.
C.Improving the living level can reduce the garbage.
D.Shopping online helps to save the environment.
