Lesson 4 Toward Sustainability
Looking to Nature for Help
Our environment is ____ trouble.
With the planet becoming warmer, sea levels are rising and natural disasters such as forest fires and floods ____ increasing.
More and more waste is also ____ produced.
Plastic, in particular, is causing problems with soil and ____ pollution.
It is clear that humans are a major contributor ____ the destruction of nature.
Will we be ____ to protect the environment from mountains of plastic?
Can we stop climate change from reaching dangerous ____
Achieving these goals seems ____
Nature, however, may have provided us with solutions to these ____
Here are three ____ where changes are already happening.
Dealing with Plastic Waste
About fifty percent of plastic is produced ____ single-use products.
That means the items are used just ____ and then discarded.
Do you ever ____ to think about where these plastic items go after you throw them away?
Recycling can help reduce the amount of plastic in ____ landfills.
However, less than ten percent of the world’s plastic waste has been ____ so far.
Often, plastic waste is moved to places where it is just dumped ____ burned.
Furthermore, between 8 and 14 million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean every ____
This puts many ____ species in danger.
With this in mind, scientists are turning ____ mealworms.
Mealworms ____ the larvae of a certain species of beetle.
Special bacteria live inside them. These bacteria can break ____ plastic.
This means that ____ can actually feed on plastic.
Scientists are now ____ for ways to cultivate the bacteria outside of mealworms.
They also want to speed up the process by ____ the bacteria break down plastic.
This may help us ____ our landfills plastic-free.
Purifying Polluted Soil
Mining and other industries ____ causing soil pollution across the globe.
Although polluted soil can be dug up and transported to a landfill, this process is ____
Moreover, ____ only moves the problem to another area and does not really solve it.
Fortunately, there is an eco-friendly and cost-effective way to ____ polluted soil—planting willow trees.
These amazing trees have ____ and well-developed root systems.
As a ____ they naturally extract a wide range of harmful materials from the soil.
They can also grow quickly, even in ____ with a high acidity level or a lot of heavy metals in it.
Research on the effectiveness of using willow trees for this purpose is ____ development.
Scientists have found that some species of willow trees are able to absorb harmful materials better ____ others.
Therefore, this promising area ____ be further explored to find out which trees are the most effective.
In time, we may be able ____ clean up our land with willow trees.
Producing Algae Biofuel
Statistics show that about thirty to forty percent of people in the world ____ coffee each day.
____ coffee-making process, however, generates used coffee grounds, which are normally sent to landfills.
There, they can create a harmful greenhouse ____
Unfortunately, ____ no way to stop everyone in the world from drinking coffee.
However, we can reduce greenhouse gas ____ by turning used coffee grounds into biofuel.
Biofuel is a natural fuel ____ is made from plant or animal sources.
Researchers have found that they can grow algae ____ old coffee grounds without adding any other nutrients.
If these algae ____ exposed to twenty hours of light and four hours of darkness each day, they eventually produce high-quality biofuel.
____ biofuel is renewable and sustainable, and it creates only a small amount of emissions.
These are just a few solutions we ____ find in nature.
There could be many ____ possible solutions to the problems we currently face.
It seems that Mother Nature has given ____ one more chance.
In return, we need to ____ for more ways to keep the environment healthy and clean.
If we do, the future of our planet ____ be bright after all.