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
Some rituals of modern domestic living vary little throughout the developed world. One such is the municipal refuse collection,
Some rituals of modern domestic living vary little throughout the developed world. One such is the municipal refuse collection,
admin
2013-01-28
66
问题
Some rituals of modern domestic living vary little throughout the developed world. One such is the municipal refuse collection, usually once a week, your rubbish bags or the contents of your bin disappear into the bowels of a special lorry and are carted away to the local tip. To economists, this ceremony is peculiar, because in most places it is free. Yes, households pay for the service out of local taxes.【71】Yet the marginal cost of rubbish disposal is not zero at all. The more people throw away, the more rubbish collectors and trucks are needed, and the more the local council has to pay in landfill and tipping fees.
【72】But as Don Fullerton and Thomas Kinnaman, two American economists, have found, this seemingly easy application of economic sense to an everyday problem has surprisingly intricate and sometimes disappointing results. In the past few years several American towns and cities have started charging households for generating rubbish. The commonest system is to sell stickers or tags which householders attach to rubbish bags or cans. Only bags with these labels are picked up in the weekly collection.
In the paper published last year Fullerton and Kinnaman studied the effects of one such scheme, introduced in July 1992 in Charlottesville, Virginia, a town of about 40,000 people. Residents were charged 80 cents for each sticker. This may sound like the sensible use of market forces. In fact, the authors conclude, the scheme’s benefits did not cover the cost of printing stickers, the sticker sellers’ commissions, and the wages of the people running the scheme.【73】
This is inefficient: compacting is done better by machines at landfill sites than by individuals, however enthusiastically. The weight of rubbish collected in Charlottesville fell by a modest 14%.
【74】The one bright spot in all this seems to have been a 15% increase in the weight of materials recycled, suggesting that people chose to recycle free rather than pay to have their refuse carted away. But the fee may have little to do with the growth in recycling, as many citizens were already participating in Charlottesville’s voluntary recycling scheme.
【75】To discourage dumping, for instance, local councils might have to spend more on catching litterers, or raise fines for littering, or cut the price of legitimate rubbish collection.
A. True, the number of bags or cans collected did fall sharply, by 37% between May and September 1992. But rather than buy more tags, people simply crammed more garbage--about 40% more into each container.
B. This looks like the most basic of economic misunderstandings: if rubbish disposal is free, people will produce too much rubbish. The obvious economic solution is to make households pay the marginal cost of disposing of their waste. That will give them an incentive to throw out less and recycle more.
C. City authorities are now considering a project to teach Government waste collectors the skills, such as what rubbish to collect and how to classify it. If approved, the project will help ease the financial burden of the city’s waste treatment.
D. It would be foolish to generalize from this one case, but the moral is clear, economic incentives sometimes produce unforeseen responses.
E. Less pleasing still, some people resorted to illegal dumping rather than pay to have their rubbish removed. This is hard to measure directly. But the authors, ob-serving that a few households in the sample stopped putting rubbish out, guess that illegal dumping may account for 30%-40% of the reduction in collected rubbish.
F. But at the margin the price is zero: the family that fills four bins with rubbish each week pays no more than the elderly couple that fills one.
选项
答案
D
解析
空格上文提到,收费和人们对垃圾回收利用的增加之间没有太大关系,真正的原因是很多市民参与到主动回收利用的方案中去了。下文举例说明减少垃圾倾倒的方法。可见,上下文之间出现了转折,空格处的内容应弥补这个信息差。选项D是正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/V31O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Despitethefactthattheywere______whentheymarried,alter30yearstheylivetogetherharmoniously.
TheAleuts(阿留申人)werenamedsobyRussians,buttheycallthemselvesUnanganwhichmeans"thepeople."Theyarenativeinhabit
Throughouthistorymanhashadtoacceptthefactthatalllivingthingsmustdie,butpeoplenowlivelongerthanthey【51】Yet,
Thereareanumberofformatsforreportingresearch,suchasarticlestoappearinjournals,reportsaddressedtofundingagenc
56.Whenyouareinthebusinessofsendingspacecrafttootherplanets,itisprobablywisetodoeverythingyoucanmkeepyo
Superstitionisadifficultquestion.WecannotquitesaythatsuperstitioninBritainisdead.Itshistoryisboth【76】longand
Superstitionisadifficultquestion.WecannotquitesaythatsuperstitioninBritainisdead.Itshistoryisboth【76】longand
PriscillaOuchida’s"energy-efficient"houseturnedouttobeahorribledream.Whensheandherengineerhusbandmarriedafew
A、expectingB、hopingC、wishingD、dreamingB本题考核的知识点是动词。四个词都有“希望“的意思,但其程度及用法不同。A项表示“希望,期待”,后面不用加介词;B项表示“希望”;C项表示“很难达到的希望”;D项表示“梦想
Theworld’spopulationcontinuestogrow.Therenowareabout4billionofusonearth.Thatcouldreach6billionbytheendof
随机试题
A.胎儿身体纵轴与母体纵轴的关系B.最先进入骨盆入口的胎儿部分C.胎儿身体纵轴与骨盆入口的关系D.胎儿肢体与母体骨盆的关系E.胎儿先露部的指示点与母体骨盆的关系胎产式
在放射免疫分析中,错误的是
患者,女,30岁。停经8个月,小腹疼痛,胸胁胀满,以往月经正常,曾生育一胎,人工流产4次。8个月前因孕50天行无痛人流,之后月经再未来潮。曾用孕激素及雌、孕激素序贯治疗无效。最可能的诊断是()
2个月男婴,出生体重3kg,因生后进乳、进水后出现呕吐,消瘦而人院治疗。查体:体重3kg,血浆蛋白降低。还可能出现下列哪项表现
某公路山岭隧道,里程为K5+100~K8+100,长度为3000m;进口段K5+100~K5+400为Ⅳ级围岩,覆盖层厚度为38rrl;K5+400~K8+1。0为V级围岩,覆盖层厚度为60~250m,其中K6+800~K7+300为曲线;采用双向钻爆导坑
短时记忆的编码方式是()
美国行为主义心理学家华生曾经这样说:“给我一打健康的婴儿,不管他们祖先的状况如何,我可以任意把他们培养成从领袖到小偷等各种类型的人。”这种观点属于()
教学就是上课。()
现有表示患者和医疗的关系如下:P(P#,Pn,Pg,By),其中P#为患者编号,Pn为患者姓名,Pg为性别,By为出生日期,Tr(P#,D#,Date,Rt),其中D#为医生编号,Date为就诊日期,Rt为诊断结果。检索在1号医生处就诊的病人姓名的表达式是
Expertsassertthatalmostalltheproductsthattelevisionsellsareproductsthatpeoplewhocareaboutkidsfeel______inthe
最新回复
(
0
)