The total amount of packaging increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of a typical household’s waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.
Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of areas for burying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, a few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.
But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But it also applies to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.
There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realise just how much unnecessary material we are collecting. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.
1. What does the underlined phrase “that over-consumption” refer to?
【2017届全国高考英语阅读理解专练(6)】相关文章:
★ 湖南省岳阳市2014高考英语一轮单项选择训练题(4)及答案
★ 湖南省汝城二中2014届高考英语一轮复习阅读训练 (31)
★ 重庆市2014高考英语阅读理解一轮(精品)训练题(19)附答案
★ 【优化方案】2017届高考英语二轮复习全国卷Ⅱ题型重组训练:第12组(含解析)
★ 湖南省汝城二中2014届高考英语一轮复习阅读训练 (51)
★ 湖南省岳阳市2014高考英语一轮单项选择训练题(8)及答案
★ 湖南省汝城二中2014届高考英语一轮复习阅读训练 (54)
最新
2017-04-24
2017-04-24
2017-04-24
2017-04-24
2017-04-21
2017-04-21