Throughout the world, only 15% of the material that are used to make clothing is properly recycled, according to the Alle SacUrthur Club, an organization in Liverpool, UK, that boosts the circular economy. Most clothing waste—an 【小题1】(estimate) 82 million tonnes from the fashion industry alone-produced every year ends up buried or burnt.

【小题2】(handle) all that waste, methods to recover and reuse the material are intended as an active response to the future risks by researchers and start-up companies. Much of their focus is on chemical recycling, 【小题3】 the material is broken down into its building blocks and applied to create new materials, including fibres that 【小题4】 (weave) into new clothes. The challenges lie in 【小题5】 (develop) the processes for such treatment. They have to be practical, but they also have to be at least as cost-effective as simply making new fibres.

【小题6】 the natural cellulose fibres from cotton, some other materials include human-made cellulosic fibres. They are derived from wood-pulp cellulose and may be used to produce materials such as viscose (rayon) and a similar material called lyocell.

A change in the manufacturing process is being applied to the textile-waste problem by Essen, a start-up in Seattle, Washington. 【小题7】 the company has fundamentally devoted to the process is that it uses discarded textiles, instead of wood, as the source of its cellulose. It has also adjusted the process to produce a fibre that the firm’s co-founder and president Christo Stan says is superior to 【小题8】 other cellulosics and cotton, and that can be recycled more times.

Although there are abundant technical challenges, the main barrier 【小题9】 widespread textile recycling could be economic, says materials engineer Lijiang Jiang at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Atlanta. “Most of the materials are not that invaluable,” Jiang says. So cheap it is to produce polyester, cotton and other fabrics 【小题10】 there’s little profit margin unless the recycling processes themselves are very inexpensive.

The Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2023 was held from March 28 to 31 in Boao, Hainan province,【小题1】highlight of which was zero-carbon.

China’s first zero-carbon demonstration zone was launched in Boao in 2022. By 2023, a total of 16 projects at the zone【小题2】(finish). The remaining projects are expected to be completed before the BFA 2024. The zone will achieve zero-carbon【小题3】(operate) in all aspects.

The construction of the demonstration zone maximizes the use of local wind, light, and heat resources,【小题4】(let) nature do the work. Photovoltaic (光伏的) power generation systems have been installed on buildings, parking lots, and landscape【小题5】 (facility). According to recent estimates, the【小题6】 (complete)16 projects, along with offset (抵消) measures, can reduce carbon emissions by 9,055.8 tons per year and provide 15.1 million kilowatt hours of clean electricity【小题7】 (annual).

Also【小题8】primary note is the fact that the construction of the demonstration zone mainly relies on independent research. “We don’t have relevant experience【小题9】(refer) to, so we have to build the zone【小题10】 doing our research and exploration,” Liu Ye, a professor at Tsinghua University, said to Xinhua.

Can We Eat Meat Without Damaging the Environment?

“I’ve eaten meat my whole life, but the more I learn about our planet, the more I question how we treat it,” says Liz Bonnin at the start of the BBC documentary Meat: A Threat To Our Planet?.

“Unless we do things very differently,” says Liz, “the impact the meat industry has【小题1】our environment is only going to get worse.【小题2】demand increases, so do greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. This leads to a very obvious question: should we just stop eating meat?” This question is often asked, and we can’t just use “yes” or “no” to answer it. I’d like to share with you my ideas on【小题3】to eat meat with the least environmental damage.

We actually need to eat more grass-fed meat, mainly beef and lamb. University of Oxford Professor Myles Allen has recalculated the amount of CH₄ emissions from ruminants(反刍动物). The inference from this new research is that we don’t have to stop【小题4】（eat）grass-fed cattle or sheep. Instead of demonizing(妖魔化)them, we need to differentiate between the animals that are part of the problem --- namely intensively produced(集中生产的)poultry, pork and dairy products, and【小题5】that are part of the solution --- namely grass-fed ruminants. At the root of the climate change problem is our fossil fuel(化石燃料)consumption, this is where we need to take【小题6】（urgent紧急的,急迫的）action.

There are responsible ways of eating meat. You can begin with knowing the farm your animal came from and what kind of life the animal【小题8】（lead）.The EU’s organic standard for livestock(牲畜), for instance, requires that a farm hold no more than two cows per hectare of land. In the UK, there is labeling available too,【小题9】will tell you if a meat’s been pasture-raised(牧场放养).

It’s important to ensure pastures are well-managed and not over-grazed(过度放牧). It’s almost possible to eat meat and be environmentally and socially conscious,【小题10】what we can do at least is to try not to buy meat that is mass-produced.