A Plastic Ocean is a film to make you think.Think,and then act.We need to take action on our dependence on plastic.We’ve been producing plastic in huge quantities.Drinking bottles,shopping bags and even clothes are made with plastic.【小题1】 What happens to all the rest?This is the question the film A Plastic Ocean answers.

The film begins as a journey to film the largest animal on the planet,the blue whale.But during the journey the filmmakers make the shocking discovery of a huge,thick layer of plastic floating in the Indian Ocean.【小题2】 In total,they visited 20 locations around the world during the four years to make the film.

In the film there are beautiful shots of the seas and marine life.【小题3】 We see how marine species are being killed by all the plastic we are dumping in the ocean.The message about our use of plastic is painfully obvious.

【小题4】 In the second half,the filmmakers look at what we can do to deal with the problem.

They present short-term and long-term solutions.These include avoiding plastic containers and recycling as much as you can.The filmmakers also stress the need for governments to work more on recycling programmes.

We make a shocking amount of plastic.Over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year,and at least 8 million of those are dumped into the oceans.The results are disastrous,but it isn’t too late to change.【小题5】

New York—like Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington—sits underneath the “Atlantic Flyway”, an ancient migration (迁徙) route travelled by millions of birds, every spring and autumn. Up to a quarter of a million of them die crashing into windows in New York every year, according to New York City Audubon, the bird charity that organizes Project Flight Safe. Birds confuse reflections of sky or plants for the real thing and fly straight for them.

In 2021, however, new laws came into force in New York requiring all new buildings and restoration work to be made bird-friendly. It is the strictest such laws in America. The case of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Centre in west Manhattan is a good example. It used to be a top bird-killer, but after swapping its glasses for bird-friendly glass, strikes dropped by 90%. The centre has now fully embraced bird life. Its green roof is home to a breeding seagull group, and as of October 18th, 62 different species have been spotted there.

At night, artificial light draws birds into the city, where they are more likely to crash. Some studies suggest birds can fail to tell direction because artificial light prevents them from sensing the Earth’s magnetic (磁的) field effectively. Last year the city passed a law that requires all city owned and managed buildings to switch their lights off at night during birds’ migration seasons. The law will extend the requirement to privately owned commercial buildings next year. Though exceptions would be allowed for landmarks such as the Empire State and the Chrysler Building, the change would still transform the world’s most famous skyline.

Jessica Wilson of NYC Audubon says that would be a good thing for birds, energy consumption and people. New York is on track to become the most bird-friendly big city in America.

“The number of sightings has fallen during lockdown, although pigeons are increasing”, reports Mark Bridge, an editor of BBC Gardeners World Magazine. He notes that sightings of some of Britain’s best-loved garden birds have fallen, blaming the reduction on fewer hedges (篱) and over “tidy” gardening.

The annual review by BBC Gardeners World Magazine found that blackbirds, house sparrows, blue tits (蓝山雀) were spotted less often than in previous years. Sightings of blackbirds were reported by only 85 percent of interviewees last year, down from 90 percent in 2018. The number of interviewees reporting sightings of house sparrows fell from 79 percent to 75 percent in the same period, with a similar decline from 80 percent to 75 percent for blue tits.

Lucy Hall, the magazine chief editor, said, “while watching wildlife has been a great distraction from the pandemic, this decline in common UK bird species is a huge concern.” Hall said that reasons for the decline included the reduction of hedges as people smartened their living surroundings. “More hedges are coming down,” she said. “People are also transforming front gardens for parking. So the sorts of habitats we’ve provided... are being ripped out.”

“As an old Chinese saying goes, when the water is too clear, there are no fish. ‘Birds’ need as lightly messy space,” she said. “They need leaf litter, a bit of rotting wood at the back of a hedge. If you haven’t got a caterpillar, the blue tit has nothing to feed on. The good news is we can all do something to help make a big difference whether it’s filing bird feeders or installing bug boxes and log (原木) piles.”

While some species were in decline, others appeared to be going well. The number of interviewees seeing feral pigeons was up by eight percentage points to 59 percent since 2018. Common gulls were also up, while robins were the birds seen by the greatest number of interviewees at 91 percent.