首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Originally, plastic was hailed for its potential to reduce humankind’s heavy environmental footprint. The earliest plastics were
Originally, plastic was hailed for its potential to reduce humankind’s heavy environmental footprint. The earliest plastics were
admin
2013-10-08
22
问题
Originally, plastic was hailed for its potential to reduce humankind’s heavy environmental footprint. The earliest plastics were invented as substitutes for shrinking supplies of natural materials like ivory or tortoiseshell. Today, plastic is perceived as nature’s nemesis(复仇者). But a generic distaste for plastic can muddy our thinking about the trade-offs involved when we replace plastic with other materials.
Take plastic bags, the emblem(象征)for all bad things. They clog storm drains, tangle up recycling equipment, litter parks and beaches and threaten wildlife on land and at sea. Such problems have fueled bans on bags around the world and in more than a dozen American cities. Unfortunately, the bans typically lead to a huge increase in the use of paper bags, which also have environmental drawbacks. In other words, plastics aren’t necessarily bad for the environment; it’s the way we make and use them that’s the problem.
It’s estimated that half of the nearly 600 billion pounds of plastics produced each year go into single-use products. Some are indisputably valuable, like disposable syringes(注射器), which have been a great ally in preventing the spread of infectious diseases like HIV, and even plastic water bottles, which, after disasters like the Japanese tsunami(海啸), are critical to saving lives. Yet many disposables, like the bags, drinking straws and packaging commonly found in beach clean-ups, are essentially prefab litter with a heavy environmental cost.
And there’s another cost. Pouring so much plastic into disposable conveniences has helped to diminish our view of a family of materials we once held in high esteem. Plastic has become synonymous with cheap and worthless, when in fact those chains of hydrocarbons ought to be regarded as among the most valuable substances on the planet. If we understood plastic’s true worth, we would stop wasting it on trivial throwaways and take better advantage of what this versatile material can do for us.
In a world of nearly seven billion souls and counting, we are not going to feed, clothe and house ourselves solely from wood, ore and stone; we need plastics. And in an era when we’re concerned about our carbon footprint, we can appreciate that lightweight plastics take less energy to produce and transport than many other materials.
Yet we can’t hope to achieve plastic’s promise for the 21st century if we stick with wasteful 20th-century habits of plastic production and consumption. We have the technology to make better and safer plastics—forged from renewable sources, rather than finite fossil fuels, using chemicals that inflict minimal or no harm on the planet and our health.
Lightweight plastics enjoy great advantage over other materials in that they are______.
选项
A、more durable and harder to break
B、energy-efficient in making and transporting
C、easy to produce and use
D、widely used in green technology
答案
B
解析
细节辨认题。由定位句可知,在一个人们都很关注自身活动对环境的影响的时代,我们对于生产和运输塑料所需能耗要比许多其他材料少得多这一点表示感谢,因此答案为B)。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/DX27777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Organisedvolunteeringandworkexperiencehaslongbeenavitalcompaniontouniversitydegreecourses.Usuallyitisleftto【C
Methodsofstudyingvary;whatworks【C1】______forsomestudentsdoesn’tworkatallforothers.Theonlythingyoucandoisex
A、Hecan’trecallwherehelefthisportablecomputer.B、He’sgotaterribleheadacheandforgetsthingseasily.C、He’ssometro
A、ItislocatedontheGulfofMexico.B、Ithasawarmclimate.C、Itdidn’thaveanylawsduringpiratedays.D、Itwasunderthe
ThenoiseofaleafblowerislouderinAmericathanthatinNewZealand.AccordingtoBobBernhard,inordertoreduceroadno
Today,somecriticsarguethatprogressonenvironmentalproblemshasbeenelusive(难以捉摸的,难以理解的).Thereissometruthinthat.I
A、80.B、160.C、20.D、40.D数字计算题。本题的关键是女士说的数字,他们雇佣了160名女性员工,占总人数的80%,那么总人数应该是200名,减去160名女性员工,男性员工应该是40名。所以答案选D。
Theshortergrowingseasonsexpectedwithclimatechangeoverthenext40yearswillendangerhundredsofmillionsofalreadypo
Theshortergrowingseasonsexpectedwithclimatechangeoverthenext40yearswillendangerhundredsofmillionsofalreadypo
Thescariestpartofbuyingausedcarisnotbeingcompletelysureofwhatconditionit’sin.Acarthat’sbeeninamajoracci
随机试题
关于自旋回波脉冲序列的构成,正确的是
动物发情以后,需要交配刺激才排卵的动物是()。
上颌磨牙与下颌磨牙的区别中哪一点是错误的
()可以设定除限制人身自由、吊销企业营业执照以外的行政处罚。
某新建酒店原定于2004年12月18日开业,可由于工期延误,不得不将开业日期推迟到2005年2月18日,那么在开业前应由()来办理工程竣工验收备案。
某公司2012年度取得境内应纳税所得额120万元,取得境外投资的税后收益59.5万元。境外企业所得税税率为20%,但该企业享受税收优惠,实际税率为15%。我国与该境外企业所在国之间签署了税收协定,在境外减免的税款应视同已缴税额在中国的应纳税额中抵免。该公司
某教师在进行“盐类的水解”一节的教学示范课时,进行了如下教学设计:(1)问题:作为生活中的一个基本常识,大多数人都知道纯碱具有碱性。同学们,请思考Na2CO3水溶液显碱性可能有哪些原因?如何用实验加以验证?(2)讨论猜想:Na2CO3水
疯狂扩散的蓝藻起初并没有使人们感到_______。往年正常情况下,它顶多影响太湖的一些景观。不会带来什么骚乱。雨季一来,这些小生物会被大量的雨水冲刷稀释,人们会渐渐_______它,直到第二年的来临。还有一些农民把它们捞起来当肥料,_______地称之为“
电脑:主板()
Hereisthestoryofrubber.FromtheearliesttimeitwascommonknowledgetothePeruvians(秘鲁人)thatwhenacutwasmadeinthe
最新回复
(
0
)