Table of Contents
BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 573
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 573 – PASSAGE – 3
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 573
READING PASSAGE – 3
Waste Recycling
Public interest in recycling has increased dramatically over the last 15 years throughout the industrialized world. This interest has been driven by a variety of factors, including concerns about increasing waste generation and dwindling landfill capacity, air pollution from incineration, and a general appreciation of the need for environmental protection. In response, a wide array of policies, regulations and programmes have been implemented.
In some countries, comprehensive extended producer responsibility (EPR) frameworks have been introduced. EPR policies shift the responsibility for meeting government-specified recycling targets to the industries that produce the recyclables. Governments are also increasingly encouraging industries to adopt environmental management systems (EMSs). These holistically address waste generation through source reduction, reuse and recycling.
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The US has taken a very different approach towards promoting recycling. While Germany’s EPR policies are highly centralized, the US federal government has largely delegated the states to handle municipal waste management. Techniques used to leverage EPR at the local level include:
– Networking with industry in a voluntary approach to promote EPR. Example: The City of Seattle, King and Snohomish Counties in Washington, and Portland Metro (a regional government agency in Oregon) formed the Northwest Product Stewardship Council to integrate product stewardship into the policy and economic structures of the Pacific Northwest.
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– Passing local resolutions encouraging industry to take responsibility for their products and packaging. Example: Los Angeles has passed resolutions calling on the plastics industry to use more post-consumer recycled content in its products.
– Banning products that harm the environment and public health. Example: Duluth, Minnesota, and the City and County of San Francisco have banned mercury thermometers. Passing local deposit legislation for beverage containers. Example: Columbia, Missouri, has the nation’s first and only local bottle bill.
– Taxing disposables. Example: City of Seattle established a tax on non-reusable packaging and cutlery used at special events, restaurants, and institutions such as hospitals.
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– Developing purchasing protocols that encourage environmentally sound products and restricting contracts to these products. Example: San Francisco passed a resolution restricting future contracts with beverage companies/vendors to those who provide containers with 10% recycled content by 2002.
– Addressing EPR as part of solid waste management plans and policy development. Example: The August 1998 City of Seattle new solid waste plan, On the Path to Sustainability, helped spur the creation of the Northwest Product Stewardship Council. The plan adopts zero waste as a guiding principle, and includes product stewardship as one of the programs for achieving future goals. Support for product stewardship in the solid waste plan allowed city staff to justify budget expenditures on work toward this goal.
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In Germany, recycling has been driven by public support for sustainable development and by concerns about diminishing landfill capacity. In response, the German government was among the first to institute a comprehensive national framework to promote recycling. This framework includes high national recycling targets for municipal waste, EPR policies on used packaging, a deposit sys-tem for beverage containers, and requirements for the commercial sector to source-separate recyclables. Perhaps the most notable component of the German system is the EPR scheme for used household packaging, which was first introduced in the 1991 German Packaging Ordinance.
In Germany’s EPR system, the packaging industry is responsible for ensuring that government-specified recycling rates for used household packaging are met. Recycling targets are 60% for aluminium, plastics and composites, 70% for paper and cardboard, 70% for steel, and 75% for glass. Retailers and packaging companies are required to accept and recycle used packaging from consumers. As an alternative, companies can contract with a third party to collect packaging from households and ensure that government-specified recycling targets are met.
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Most of the German packaging industry has adopted this alternative approach. The resulting Green Dot system has become a model for subsequent EPR programmes in Europe and elsewhere. Green Dot member companies pay per-package, material specific fees to the Duales System Deutschland (DSD). The DSD uses proceeds from the fees to fund household collection and sorting, as well as to contract with end-users to accept and recycle specific quantities.
While the UK has adopted EPR, it has taken an unusual approach. The country’s packaging industry is responsible for demonstrating that recycling targets have been met through the purchase of tradable packaging recovery notes (PRNs). These notes, which are created when specific quantities of materials are recycled, are purchased by brokers and are then sold to individual companies or to industry compliance programmes. Since PRNs are not specific to a particular location, reprocessors tend to recycle the materials that can be collected and reprocessed at the lowest cost, leading to a system that theoretically is very cost-effective.
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Japan, like the other Asian countries is densely populated and has limited landfill capacity. As a result, the country has relied on incineration as its predominant means of waste disposal: nearly 70% of Japan’s MSW is incinerated. In the 1990s, concerns arose about emissions from incineration. In response, the Japanese government adopted a comprehensive policy framework to increase recycling.
Components of this framework include:
– a 50% reduction target in landfilling rates from 1996 to 2010
– material-specific recycling targets for packaging materials
– locally enforced source-separation mandates
– a requirement for municipalities to operate recycling programmes
– federal government subsidies to support recycling programmes
– EPR laws for packaging and electronics
– national green procurement regulations
– government financing of pilot programmes and research and development.
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Many of these policies came into place after 2000. Their effects are just beginning to appear in the recycling statistics available.
Given the differences from one country to another, it is not possible to specify a blanket set of policies that are best for all. Instead what is best for any particular country, region or locality depends on what is practical, affordable, as well as politically and socially acceptable.
Questions 27-31
Match the following initials to statements made about them.
A. EPR
B. EMS
C. DSD
D. PRN
E. MSW
27. most waste is burnt
28. involves household collections
29. involves industry packaging
30. involves a holistic approach to waste reduction
31. very cost-effective
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Questions 32-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? Write
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage.
32. Under EPR policies it is now the responsibility of the end user to recycle waste.
33. In contrast to Germany, US federal states are responsible for waste management.
34. Two American cities have banned the use of mercury thermometers.
35. Seattle requires its local restaurants to pay a tax on non-reusable knives and forks.
36. One American city has stopped buying from drinks companies whose products do not include recycled content.
37. It was public demand that led to Germany instituting national laws to govern recycling.
38. German packaging has a Green Dot on all its recyclable packaging.
39. Only British company can buy packaging recovery notes.
40. Japan’s waste emissions have fallen since the year 2000.
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ANSWERS
27. E
28. C
29. Α
30. B
31. D
32. FALSE
33. TRUE
34. TRUE
35. TRUE
36. TRUE
37. TRUE
38. NOT GIVEN
39. FALSE
40. NOT GIVEN
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