А Question 2
What is the central idea of "Paper or Plastic, Neitheri"?
Both paper and plastic are the preferred grocery carrier
Cloth bags are the preferred grocery carrier.
Paper bags are the preferred grocery carrier
Plastic bags are the preferred grocery carrier
B
С
D
Paper or Plastic? Neither!
The deceptively simple question at the grocery check stand is "Paper or plastic?" However, the story is
much more complicated. When plastic bags were introduced, consumers liked the lightweight
convenience. The fact that no trees were cut down in the production of plastic bags was another
advantage. The real truth is that both plastic and paper bags burn far too much energy and are
destructive to the environment
Almost 1 million plastic bags are used every minute. That is over 100 billion bags a year in the United
States alone, with 500 billion bags used yearly around the world. Not only are plastic bags energy
wasters, but also they are harmful to the environment. These so-called disposable" bags will outlive all of
us for generations and generations, remaining on the land for about 1,000 years.
Compared to plastic bags, paper bags seem a vast improvement. However, that is a misconception
Producing a paper bag consumes approximately three times the amount of energy that it takes to
produce a plastic bag. In addition, paper bags require logging at monstrous rates. In 1999, 14 million trees
were sacrificed in order to manufacture 10 billion paper bags. Those statistics are just for the United
States: Imagine what the global totals are.
Even though this news is bleak, there is hope for change. In 2002, Ireland imposed a tax on plastic bags.
This measure reduced plastic bag usage by 90%. Consumers turned to reusable cloth shopping bags. In
contrast to paper and plastic bags, reusable cloth bags have no real disadvantages. Each reusable bag
you use could mean that 1,000 fewer plastic bags are used. Reusable bags can also save consumers
money. Many stores offer a discount of $.05 to $.10 for each reusable bag.