Is renting clothes greener than buying them? Sustainable (可持续的) fashion expert Elizabeth Cline isn't sure. Clothing renting is a hot new industry and businessmen are trying to attract shoppers who care about the environment. Last summer alone, Urban Outfitters, Macy's, Bloomingdale's American Eagle and Banana Republic all announced renting services — a sure sign of changing times.

But is renting fashion actually more environmentally-friendly than buying it? And if so, how much more? Journalist and author Elizabeth Cline researched this question in a feature article for Elle, and she concluded that it's not as sustainable as it seems.

Take shipping for example, which has to go two ways if an item is rented — receiving and returning. Cline writes that consumer transportation has the second largest carbon footprint of our collective fashion habit after manufacturing.

   Then there's the burden of washing, which has to happen for every item when it's returned, regardless of whether or not it was worn. For most renting services, this usually means dry-cleaning, which is a polluting process. All the renting services that Cline looked into have replaced perchloroethylene,a carcinogenic (致癌的) air pollutants that's still used by 70 percent of US dry cleaners, with hydrocarbon (碳氢化合物) alternatives, although these aren't great either. They can produce harmful waste and air pollution if not handled correctly.

Lastly, Cline fears that renting services will increase our appetite for fast fashion, simply because it's so easily accessible. There's something called "share-washing" that makes people have more wasteful behaviors because a product or service is shared and thus is considered more eco-friendly. Uber is one example of this: advertised as a way to share rides and reduce car ownership, and yet it has been proven to discourage walking, bicycling and public transportation use.

Renting clothes is still preferable to buying them cheap and throwing them into the bin after wearing them a few times, but we shouldn't let the availability of these services make us self-satisfied. There's an even better step — and that's wearing what we already have.

【小题1】The underline word in Paragraph 3 most probably means______.

A．traveling by ship	B．selling or renting a ship
C．delivering or mailing	D．the cost of sending

【小题2】What can we infer from the passage?

A．Clothing renting became popular ten years ago.

B．Consumer transportation has the largest carbon footprint.

C．Renting clothes deserves further consideration.

D．Uber is a good example of sharing rides.

【小题3】How much are the following alternatives preferred by the author?
①Renting used clothes        ②Buying cheap new clothes and dumping them soon
③Wearing the clothes we have instead of getting more to wear

A．①>②>③	B．②>③>①
C．③>②>①	D．③>①>②

【小题4】Which of the following may be the best title for the passage?

A．Renting fashion-a sustainable choice!	B．Clothes renting or clothes buying?
C．Renting services are catching on	D．Clothes renting-truly greener?