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
Five Eco-crimes We Commit Every Day Ask yourself this: how green am I really? You might think you are doing your bit for the
Five Eco-crimes We Commit Every Day Ask yourself this: how green am I really? You might think you are doing your bit for the
admin
2013-08-12
54
问题
Five Eco-crimes We Commit Every Day
Ask yourself this: how green am I really? You might think you are doing your bit for the environment, but even if you shun bottled water, buy local produce and reuse your plastic bags, chances are that you have some habits that are far more environmentally damaging than you realise.
1. Coffee
Take coffee. The average cup of black filter coffee is in fact responsible, for 125 grams of CO
2
emissions. Of this, two-thirds comes from production and most of the rest from brewing.
Choosing the instant coffee reduces that figure to around 80 grams. Yet that still means a six-a-day caffeine habit clocks up more than 175 kilograms of CO
2
each year. That’s the equivalent of a flight across Europe—from London to Rome, say. Add milk, and the methane(甲烷)produced by dairy cows means you increase your coffee’s climate-changing emissions by more than a third.
It doesn’t end there, though. The environmental group WWF has calculated that it takes 200 litres of water to produce the coffee, milk, sugar and cup for just one cup of regular takeout hot coffee. So if everyone ditched their pre-work coffee fix that would do wonders for the planet.
2. Toilet paper
Then there’s toilet paper. Like coffee companies, toilet paper manufacturers have long provided options for environmentally conscious consumers. Top of the list is 100 per cent recycled paper, which avoids much of the energy use and emissions associated with harvesting and processing new wood. Every kilogram of recycled tissue saves some 30 litres of water and between 3 and 4 kilowatt-hours of electricity. Since 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity is responsible for around 500 grams of CO
2
, that means a saving of 1.5 to 2 tonnes of CO
2
per tonne of tissue.
Recycled toilet tissue is most widely used in Europe and Latin America, but even there it still only accounts for 1 in 5 rolls. In the US it isn’t a common product. The average American gets through 23 toilet rolls each year, adding up to more than 7 billion rolls for the country in total. Of these, just 1 in 50 are from 100 per cent recycled fibres. As Greenpeace pointed out earlier this year, this not only wastes energy and water, it also puts additional logging pressure on old-growth forest in North America, forests which play a vital role in supporting native biodiversity.
The reason toilet roll made from new wood is preferred is quite simple: its long fibres produce the softest paper. Every time paper is recycled, the fibres become shorter, making for an increasingly rough bathroom experience. Recycled paper can’t compete on softness so some use of new wood by the toilet paper industry may be inevitable. Sourcing Forest Stewardship Council(FSC)approved toilet tissue will help to ensure that any new wood fibres that are added to the mix have come from sustainable forestry projects that protect, rather than threaten, old-growth forest ecosystems.
3. Fast fashion
Next on the list of everyday crime is fast fashion. In 1990, global textile production stood at 40 million tonnes. By 2005 that figure had risen to around 60 million tonnes. This surge in manufacture and consumption has been helped by fast-moving fashion trends and sweatshop price tags. As a result, much of the clothing we buy ends up being discarded long before it has worn out. In the UK, where the average item is worn for less than a third of its useful lifespan, more than a million tonnes of clothing are thrown away each year. The bulk of it ends up buried in landfill sites.
Even the global economic crisis appears to have had little impact on our love affair with fast fashion; UK clothing sales this summer were up 11 per cent on the same time last year. If we can’t entirely kick the habit, we can at least dispose of the evidence in a greener way.
At present, in the UK and US, only around a quarter of unwanted textiles are reused or recycled. Recycled textiles have many uses, from mattress(床垫)fillings to bags and shoes, but the truly green alternative is reuse. The energy required to collect, process and sell a reused item of clothing is only 2 per cent of the energy required to manufacture a new garment. Every kilogram of virgin cotton preserved by reusing second-hand clothing saves 65 kilowatt-hours of energy, equivalent to about 32.5 kilograms of CO
2
.
4. Laundry
Fast fashion has created textile mountains in many homes, yet the environmental cost of this excessive consumption has an even less conspicuous twin: the energy used to launder it all. Cleanliness has become a touchstone of domestic life since advertisers convinced us that our shirts must always be "whiter than white", our sheets should forever smell of spring flowers, and that to be dressed in freshly laundered clothes at all times is a badge of success. We live in a "wear once and wash" culture. In fact, only about 7.5 per cent of the average laundry load in the UK is thought to be heavily soiled. Much of the rest is made up of items that are stuffed into the washing machine simply because they are on the floor instead of in the wardrobe. This habit is shockingly wasteful in terms of water, detergents(洗涤剂)and energy.
One study found that over 80 per cent of the CO
2
emissions produced during the life cycle of a single blouse arose from cleaning and drying it. The percentage can be even higher for items made of cotton, as they tend to require far more energy-hungry drying.
It is easy to see how these emissions stack up. A full load in a washing machine uses around 1.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity per cycle and tumble drying clocks up a further 3.5 kilowatt-hours, resulting in over 2 kilograms of CO
2
emissions per wash. With four or five loads per household per week, the total annual emissions from each home can easily pass the half-tonne mark. That’s a significant proportion of the 10-tonne annual emissions of the average European. Line drying, washing at lower temperatures and ensuring full rather than partial loads will all help to reduce laundry emissions. For the largest cuts, simply washing less frequently is the way to go.
5. Food wastage
Of all the facets of overconsumption that plague both human society and the global environment, food wastage is the most shocking. US households throw away around 30 per cent of their food, worth $48 billion every year. Similar levels of wastage are seen in Europe. In the UK, some 6.7 million tonnes of food is binned annually. Most of this joins the layers of unwanted clothing in landfill sites, where it decays, emitting the powerful greenhouse gas methane. Potatoes top the pile, with 359,000 tonnes going uneaten each year. Bread and apples are not far behind. Meat and fish are next, accounting for over 160,000 tonnes. A staggering 4.8 billion grapes go the same way, as do 480 million yogurts. The annual cost to UK consumers of all this waste is £10 billion and the cost to the environment is the equivalent of an extra 15 million tonnes of CO
2
.
What is the greenest way to dispose of the old clothes?
选项
A、Burying the clothes in landfill sites.
B、Recycling the textile to make new products.
C、Selling the clothes as used items.
D、Burning the clothes to generate energy.
答案
C
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/dP97777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、Hesucceededinbeatingamuggerinafight.B、Hebecameakarate(空手道)expert.C、Hepassedawayinahospitalafterafightwit
A、AdetectivefromtheLosAngelesPoliceDepartment.B、DetectiveGarciafromtheNewYorkPoliceDepartment.C、Someonewholive
A、Itshouldbeassimilatedthoroughly.B、Itshouldbeenclosedinquotationmarks.C、Itshouldbeparaphrasedbytheauthors.D、
WhatismostremarkableaboutthebuildingoftheSwissReTowerisnotitsnameoritsshape,however,butitsenergy-efficienc
A、BylearningEnglishalone.B、BylearningEnglishhardbeforetest.C、Bystudyingathersparetime.D、Bylearningalittlereg
A、Invarioustents.B、Inuniversitybuildings.C、Inahospital.D、Inanauditorium.A原文出现的theuniversityathleticfield并没有在选项中出现
Thegovernmenthas______(高度重视由抑制的人口持续增长所引起的各种问题).
Everyprofessionortrade,everyart,andeverysciencehasitstechnicalvocabulary,thefunctionof【C1】______ispartlyto【C2】
IsCollegeReallyWorththeMoney?TheRealWorldEsteGriffithhaditallfiguredout.WhenshegraduatedfromtheUniversit
A、1.B、2.C、3D、4B选项表明,本题与数字有关,故听音时应留意与数字相关的信息,做好笔记。对话中女士问男士的保险额(coverage)涵盖几个人,男士回答说就是他和他的妻子,也就是两个人,故答案为B)。
随机试题
下列哪项是氧化磷酸化的解偶联剂
根据《民事诉讼法》和司法解释的相关规定,关于级别管辖,下列哪些表述是正确的?(2012年试卷三第78题)
普通硅酸盐水泥的代号是()。
防水混凝土冬期施工宜采用()保证施工质量。
旅行社服务网点从事招徕、咨询以外的旅行社业务经营活动的不属于超范围经营。()
19世纪,爱默生和其他一些作家向读者传授一种称为“自助论”的理论。在这些人看来,一个有个性的人必须要有一颗充实的大脑。在这种思想的指导下,为了得到他人的尊重,有必要在闲暇时广泛涉猎文化史上的杰出著作。同时,也有必要熟悉哲学、神学和世界范围内的重大政治事件。
在泸州遗赠案中,法院认为,尽管继承法中有明确的法律条文,而且本案中的遗赠也是真实的,但是黄某将遗产赠给“第三者”的这种民事行为违反了民法通则第七条“民事活动应当尊重社会公德,不得损害社会公共利益,破坏国家经济计划,扰乱社会经济秩序”,因此,遗赠是无效的。
设Ω:x2+y2+z2≤1,证明:
WelcometothePublicBusSystem.Itsbusnetworkoperates365daysoftheyearandhas【11】thatcantakeyoutoyourdestinati
Werecognizethatthekeytoqualityassuranceiscontinuousalertness.Thatiswhyoursystemsarecontrolledcentrally,andpe
最新回复
(
0
)