Wherever people have been, they have left waste behind, which can cause all sorts of problems. Waste often stinks, attracts verm

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问题     Wherever people have been, they have left waste behind, which can cause all sorts of problems. Waste often stinks, attracts vermin and creates eyesores. More seriously, it can release harmful chemicals into the soil and water when dumped, or into the air when burned. And then there are some really nasty forms of industrial waste, such as spent nuclear fuel, for which no universally accepted disposal methods’ have thus far been developed.
    Yet many also see waste as an opportunity. Getting rid of it all has become a huge global business. Rich countries spend some $120 billion a year disposing of their municipal waste alone and another $150 billion on industrial waste. The amount of waste that countries produce tends to grow in tandem with their economies, and especially with the rate of urbanization. So waste firms see a rich future in places such as China, India and Brazil, which at present spend only about $5 billion a year collecting and treating their municipal waste.
    Waste also presents an opportunity in a grander sense: as a potential resource. Much of it is already burned to generate energy. Clever new technologies to turn it into fertiliser or chemicals or fuel are being developed all the time. Visionaries see a world without waste, with rubbish being routinely recycled.
    Until last summer such views were spreading quickly. But since then plummeting prices for virgin paper, plastic and fuels, and hence also for the waste that substitutes for them, have put an end to such visions. Many of the recycling firms that had argued rubbish was on the way out now say that unless they are given financial help, they themselves will disappear.
    Subsidies are a bad idea. Governments have a role to play in the business of waste management, but it is a regulatory and supervisory one. They should oblige people who create waste to clean up after themselves and ideally ensure that the price of any product reflects the cost of disposing of it safely. That would help to signal which items are hardest to get rid of, giving consumers an incentive to buy goods that create less waste in the first place.
    That may sound simple enough, but governments seldom get the rules right. In poorer countries they often have no rules at all, or if they have them they fail to enforce them. In rich countries they are often inconsistent: too strict about some sorts of waste and worryingly lax about others. They are also prone to imposing arbitrary targets and taxes. California, for example, wants to recycle all its trash not because it necessarily makes environmental or economic sense but because the goal of “zero waste” sounds politically attractive.
Waste firms expect a great development in China, India and Brazil because

选项 A、those economies have a large amount of waste to be treated.
B、those economies develop fast but spend little on waste business.
C、those economies welcome waste firms to run business there.
D、those economies pay more attention to environmental protection.

答案B

解析 事实细节题。由题干关键词将信息定位于第二段尾句。从该句可知,中国、印度等每年花在收集、处理城市垃圾的资金很少;再由so前一句可知,一国垃圾的数量和该国经济增长和城市化的速度可以说成正比。根据常识,中国、印度、巴西都是发展较好的发展中国家,它们经济增长和城市化速度都快,花在垃圾处理上的钱少,故垃圾处理公司看到了大好前景,选[B],同时排除理由不全面的[A]。[C]、[D]是主观臆断,找不到依据。
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