In 1993, New York State ordered stores to charge a deposit on beverage container

In 1993, New York State ordered stores to charge adeposit on beverage (=drink) containers. Within a year, consumers had returnedmillions of aluminum cans and glass and plastic bottles. Plenty of companieswere eager to accept the aluminum and glass as raw material for new products,but because few could figure out what to do with the plastic, much of it would endup buried in landfills(垃圾填埋场). The problem was not limited to New York. Unfortunately, therewere too few uses for second-hand plastic.

Today, one out of five plastic soda bottles is recycledin the United States. The reason for the change is that now there are dozens ofcompanies across the country buying discarded plastic soda bottles and turningthem into fence post, paint brushes, etc.

As the New York experience shows, recycling involvesmore than simply separating valuable materials from the rest of the rubbish. Adiscard remains a discard unti1 somebody figures out how to give it a secondlife — and until economic arrangements exist to give that second lifeva1ue.Without adequate markets to absorb materials collected for recycling,throwaways actually depress prices for used materials.

Shrinking landfill space and rising costs for buryingand burning rubbish are forcing local governments to look more closely atrecycling. In many areas, the East Coast especially, recycling is already theleast expensive waste-management option. For every ton of waste recycled, acity avoids paying for its disposal, which, in parts of New York, amounts tosavings of more than $100 per ton. Recycling also stimulates the local economyby creating jobs and reduces the pollution control and energy costs ofindustries that make recycled products by giving them a more refined rawmaterial.

1.What regulation was issued by New York State concerning beverage containers?

A. A fee should be charged on used containers forrecycling.

B. Throwaways should be collected by the state forrecycling.

C. Consumers had to pay for beveragecontainers and could get their money back on returning them.

D. Beverage companies should be responsiblefor collecting and reusing discarded plastic soda bottles.

2.The returned plastic bottles in New York used to        .

A. be turned into raw materia1s

B. be separated from other rubbish

C. have a second-life value

D. end up somewhere underground

3.The key problem in dealing with returned plasticbeverage containers is            .

A. how to reduce their recycling costs

B. to sell them at a profitable price

C. how to turn them into useful things

D. to lower the prices for used materials

4.Recycling has become the first choice for the disposalof rubbish because         .

A. recycling causes litt1e pollution

B. other methods are more expensive

C. recycling has great appeal for the jobless

D. local governments find it easy to manage

5.It can be concluded from the passage that          .

A.  recycling is to be recommended botheconomically and environmentally

B. local governments in the U. S. can expect big profitsfrom recycling

C. rubbish is a potential remedy for the shortage of rawmaterials

D. landfills will sti1l be widely used for waste disposal

试题答案

【答案】

1.C

2.D

3.C

4.B

5.A