Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important, of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that over-consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place.
The total amount of packaging has 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 it 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, 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 is also applied 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 realize just how much unnecessary materials are collected. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.
小题1:What does the underlined phrase "over-consumption" refer to?
A．Using too much packaging.
B．Recycling too many wastes.
C．Having more material than is needed.
D．Making more products than necessary.小题2:The author uses figures in Paragraph 2 to show_______.
A．the tendency of cutting household waste
B．the increase of packaging recycling
C．the fact of packaging overuse
D．the rapid growth of supermarkets小题3:According to the text, recycling_________.
A．means burning packaging for energy
B．helps control the greenhouse effect
C．is the solution to gas shortage
D．leads to a waste of land小题4:What can be inferred from Paragraph 4?
A．Unpackaged products are of bad quality.
B．Supermarkets care more about packaging.
C．Other products are better packaged than food.
D．It is improper to judge quality by packaging.小题5:What can we learn from the last paragraph?
A．Needless material is mostly recycled.
B．Fighting wastefulness is difficult.
C．People like collecting recyclable wastes.
D．The author is proud of their consumer culture.
