35. Which of the following is the best
title for this passage?
A. A Village in Iceland
B. Science Students in Sandgerdi
C. A Boys Cleverer Than Girls?
D. A Land Where Girls Rule in Math
TEXT C
Our eagerness for recycling is growing fast, but Britain’s 17 percent of
household wasted recycled still trails behind rates of around 50 percent
in the Netherlands, Austria and Germany. “ The key to good recycling rates is kerbside
collection ,” says Georgina Bloomfield, from Friends of the Earth. “In the
top European countries a wide range of waste is collected every weeek-glass ,
paper, cans, plastics and more.” Although two-thirds of Britain’s households
now have kerbside collection of some sort, local government vary widely in the
service they offer. Top-performing Livhfield and Daventry recycle more than 40
percent and make regular doorstep collections of waste, but
bottom-of-the-league Isles of Scilly has no recycling collecting at all and
Liverpool City Council Recycles just four percent.
What’s the British Government doing about it ? it says a 25 percent
recycling rate is “achievable” by 2006, and yet local governments are required
by law only to provide every household with a collection of two materials by
2010. Environment Elliot Morley said, “It’s up to authorities to increase
recycling and this may involve solutions other than kerbside collection. But
should they continue to make no commitment to improvement, the last measure
could involve the secretary of state taking over the duty of the authority.
We could recycle more than 60 percent of our waste in the UK if we
implemented best practices seen across Europe , such as wide-ranging
kerbside collection. In Sweden, where 95 percent of metal cans are recycled,
customers receive money back on returned cans. In Germany some 70 percent of
soft drinks are sold in returnable bottles. In Iceland, a 10 percent tax on
plastic carrier bags lead to a 90 percent reduction in use in just six month.
One of Britain’s biggest challenges is packaging waste –roughly half of
our rubbish comes from supermarkets. In November the Government provided an £8
million fund to “stimulate new packaging design”, and invited individuals and
companies to offer ideas . sounds good , doesn’t it? But other countries have
already reduced over-packaging. If and when these new measures are rolled
out, they will be welcomed. People in Britain really do want to do the
right thing-according to an Environment Agency survey, 90 percent of us say we’d
recycle if the governments made it easier. And in the end, we may have no
choice. We cannot continue dumping millions of tons of waste into the ground.
This is our chance to make a difference-because we can.
