Cigarette butts (烟蒂) are everywhere - clogging up our streets, littering our beaches - and for decades they’ve been thought of as “unrecyclable”. But a New Jersey-based company, called TerraCycle, has taken on the challenge, and has come up with a way to recycle millions of cigarette butts and turn them into industrial plastic products. Its aim is to take items that people normally consider impossible to recycle, and then use science to figure out a way to do just that.
Despite the increase in anti-smoking ads and messaging over the past 20 years, global sales of cigarettes increased by 8 percent, and a whole lot of those cigarette butts are ending up as trash, which can surely pollute the surrounding environment.
So how do you go about turning all those poisonous ends into something useful? TerraCycle does this by first breaking them down into separate parts. They mix the remaining materials, such as the tobacco and the paper, with other kinds of rubbish, and use it on non-agricultural land, such as golf courses. The filters (过滤嘴) are a little harder. To recycle these, TerraCycle first makes them clean and cuts them into small pieces, and then combines them with other recycled materials, making them into liquid for industrial plastic products.
They now have more than 7,000 cigarette recycling bins in nine countries around the world. They’re also expanding their recycling offerings to the rest of the 80 percent of household waste that currently can’t be recycled, such as chocolate packaging, pens, and mobile phones. The goal is to use the latest research to find a way to stop so much waste ending up in. landfill (垃圾填埋), and then get companies to fund the process. And so far, it’s working.
“We haven’t found anything that we can’t recycle,” communications director of Terra Cycle, Albe Zakes, said. “But with the amount and variety of packaging and litter in the world, we are always looking for new waste streams to address.”
【小题1】Which of the following is true according to the text?| A．It is impossible for the filters to be recycled. |
| B．Terra Cycle has achieved a lot in recycling what used to be considered “unrecyclable”. |
| C．Anti-smoking ads and messaging have led to people’s quitting smoking. |
| D．Mobile phones can’t be recycled by means of the latest research. |
| A．Unbelievable and costly. |
| B．Excellent but hard to carry out. |
| C．Useless in dealing with other household waste. |
| D．Practical and environmentally friendly |
| A．mineral | B．fertilizer |
| C．rubbish | D．poison |
| A．TerraCycle has successfully recycled everything. |
| B．they still have a long way to go. |
| C．it will be too difficult for them to find new ways. |
| D．the public should be aware of the environmental pollution. |
