题型:阅读理解 题类:模拟题 难易度:普通
山东省枣庄市2018届高三英语第二次模拟考试试卷
Every day, Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws, enough to circle the Earth twice. They are almost never recycled, and simply contribute to the great problem of plastic pollution; eight million tons of plastic is dumped into the oceans every year.
Plastic straws are now the target of a growing movement to reduce their use. Possibly the first of such campaigns, Be Straw Free was started in 2011 by Milo Cress, who was only nine years old at the lime.
"I noticed that whenever I ordered a drink at a restaurant, it would usually come with a straw in it, and I don' I usually need a straw," he said. "This seemed like a huge waste. Straws are made of oil, a precious and finite resource. Is making single - use plastic straws, which will be used for a matter of minutes before being tossed away, really what we want to do with this resource?"
Cress started asking restaurants in Burlington, Vermont, where he lived at the time, to stop providing straws automatically to customer and make them optional instead. Many agreed and his request made ripples (涟漪) nationwide. The restaurants that make the switch report a reduction in the number of straws they use between 50 and 80%.
The anti - straw sentiment has crossed borders into the UK, where straws have been included in a government plan to ban ail plastic waste by 2042.
Last year large pub chain Wetherspoons announced that it would replace plastic straws with paper alternatives across 900 outlets. After the announcement, many smaller chains and pubs across the country followed suit. According to Wetherspoons CEO John Hutson, the move will save 70 million plastic straws a year and the reaction from patrons has been "very positive".
Offering alternatives or making plastic straws optional, rather than banning them completely, is a common trait among these campaigns. "There are many other viable alternatives to single - use plastic drinking straws that are less harmful to the environment, wildlife and humans," said Jackie Nunez, founder of The Last Plastic Straw.
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