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  3. Europe is following the Dutch lead and taking the green movement to the manufacturers of white goods and electronics. A spate of

Europe is following the Dutch lead and taking the green movement to the manufacturers of white goods and electronics. A spate of

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问题     Europe is following the Dutch lead and taking the green movement to the manufacturers of white goods and electronics. A spate of legislation emerging from Brussels aims ultimately to hold manufacturers responsible for the fate of their products along after they’ve left store shelves or car showrooms. They’re being told they must ensure that as much as 85 percent of their products is recycled or reused, and the remainder disposed of in environmentally sound ways.
    Something surely needs to be done. In recent decades consumers have grown used to an ever-speedier turnover of hardware. A computer built in the 1960s lasted 10 years on average; now they are scrapped in just four. In the past more than 9 0 percent of this detritus had been buried in landfills. Europe’s junk heap of electronic goods now weighs 6 million tons and will double in 12 years. All this waste is taking an obvious toll on the planet.
    Even at this early stage in Europe’s recycling experiment, though, the new laws have already caused unintended problems. Some European countries have been caught wholly unprepared. Because of the new regulations, waste sites and incinerators throughout Europe are being inundated with hardware. Recycling facilities now coming online face a backlog of six months. Another problem: replacing bad but essential materials. The EU will soon ban the use of the lead, a hazardous substance that’s been used for decades to solder circuit boards. Electronics companies are struggling to find alternatives. "This could be a much bigger challenge for us than the waste-disposal regulations," says Michelle O’Neill, a Hewlett-Packard lobbyist in Brussels.
    Business leaders also warn of excessive costs. "Society and the politicians have another objective here: to move costs onto industry," says Viktor Sundberg, European-affairs director of Swedish manufacturer Electrolux. Inevitably some of those costs will trickle down to the consumer. And there’s the sticky problem of assigning responsibility. Is one manufacturer liable for recycling the products of a former rival that has gone out of business? Should carmakers pay for dismembering vehicles built years before the directive took effect? Europe hasn’t worked out these issues.
    The new recycling laws may not cost as much as one might think. Many of the new targets are only incrementally tougher than existing ones. Carmakers, for instance, will in five years have to recycle or reuse 80 percent, by weight, of their old cars. But in the more ecoconscious northern states, they already voluntarily recycle 60 percent. That may be why manufacturers have greeted the new rules meekly. Ford claims that its latest Fiesta hatchback, newly built for the European market, is already 85 percent recyclable. That’s a powerful image for the new ecofriendly manufacturing, provided Europe’s medicine works without too many side effects.
The word "inundate"(Line 4, Paragraph 3)probably means
选项 A、overwhelm.
B、destroy.
C、flood.
D、pollute.
答案C
解析 第三段第四行的inundate一词的意思可能是[A]压垮。[B]破坏。[C]大量地涌入。[D]污染。单词的意思可以从上下文中猜出。上文指出，一些国家发现自己还远远没有做好准备。下文指出，正在生产的回收设备已经有积压六个月的工作在等着它们了。所以欧洲的废品处理基地和焚烧装置里肯定是堆积了大量的硬件产品。然后，比较四个选项，可发现[C]包含大量产品堆积的意思，而且很形象，“像洪水般涌入”，所以是正确答案。
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