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    Of the 8,300 million tonnes of virgin plastic produced up to the end of 2015, 6,300 million tonnes have been discarded. Most of that plastic waste is still with us, buried in landfills or polluting the environment. But what if we could wave a magic wand and remove all plastics from our lives? For the sake of the planet, it would be a tempting prospect — but we’d quickly find out just how far plastic has seeped into every aspect of our existence. Is life as we know it even possible without plastic?

    Our food system would quickly collapse. We use packaging to protect food from damage in transit and preserve it long enough to reach supermarket shelves, but also for communication and marketing. “I cannot imagine how [plastic] would be replaced completely in our system,” says Eleni Iacovidou, a lecturer in environmental management at Brunel University London.

    Swapping out plastic packaging would produce several environmental side-effects. While glass has some advantages over plastic, such as being endlessly recyclable, a one litre glass bottle can weigh as much as 800g compared to a 40g plastic one. This results in glass bottles having a higher overall environmental impact compared to plastic containers for milk or fruit juice, for example. When those heavier bottles and jars need to be transported over long distances, carbon emissions grow even more.

    In some ways, though, changing food packaging would be the easy part. You might buy milk in a glass bottle, but plastic tubing is used in the dairy industry to get that milk from cow to bottle. Even if you buy vegetables loose, sheets of plastic protective cover may have helped the farmer who grew them save water. Without plastic, industrial agriculture as we know it would be impossible. Instead, we’d need shorter food chains — think farm shops and community-supported agriculture. But with over half of the global population now living in cities, this would require huge changes in where and how we grow food. It wouldn’t be an impossible task, says Iacovidou, but “we have to devote the time to do it”.

(Kelly Oakes. www.bbc.com, 07.06.2022. Adaptado.)

TEXT

Americans May Add Five Times More Plastic to the Oceans Than Thought

    The United States is using more
plastic than ever, and waste exported for
recycling is often mishandled, according
to a new study.
[5]    The United States contribution
to coastal plastic pollution worldwide is
significantly larger than previously
thought, possibly by as much as five
times, according to a study published
[10] Friday. The research, published in Science
Advances, is the sequel to a 2015 paper
by the same authors. Two factors
contributed to the sharp increase:
Americans are using more plastic than
[15] ever and the current study included
pollution generated by United States
exports of plastic waste, while the earlier
one did not.
    The United States, which does
[20] not have sufficient infrastructure to
handle its recycling demands at home,
exports about half of its recyclable waste.
Of the total exported, about 88 percent
ends up in countries considered to have
[25] inadequate waste management.
    “When you consider how much
of our plastic waste isn’t actually
recyclable because it is low-value,
contaminated or difficult to process, it’s
[30] not surprising that a lot of it ends up
polluting the environment,” said the
study’s lead author, Kara Lavender Law,
research professor of oceanography at
Sea Education Association, in a
[35] statement.
    The study estimates that in
2016, the United States contributed
between 1.1 and 2.2 million metric tons of
plastic waste to the oceans through a
[40] combination of littering, dumping and

mismanaged exports. At a minimum,
that’s almost double the total estimated
waste in the team’s previous study. At the
high end, it would be a fivefold increase
[45] over the earlier estimate.
    Nicholas Mallos, a senior
director at the Ocean Conservancy and an
author of the study, said the upper
estimate would be equal to a pile of
[50] plastic covering the area of the White
House Lawn and reaching as high as the
Empire State Building.
    The ranges are wide partly
because “there’s no real standard for
[55] being able to provide good quality data on
collection and disposal of waste in
general,” said Ted Siegler, a resource
economist at DSM Environmental
Solutions, a consulting firm, and an
[60] author of the study. Mr. Siegler said the
researchers had evaluated waste-disposal
practices in countries around the world
and used their “best professional
judgment” to determine the lowest and
[65] highest amounts of plastic waste likely to
escape into the environment. They settled
on a range of 25 percent to 75 percent.
    Tony Walker, an associate
professor at the Dalhousie University
[70] School for Resource and Environmental
Studies in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said that
analyzing waste data can amount to a
“data minefield” because there are no
data standards across municipalities.
[75] Moreover, once plastic waste is shipped
overseas, he said, data is often not
recorded at all.
    Nonetheless, Dr. Walker, who
was not involved in the study, said it
[80] could offer a more accurate accounting of
plastic pollution than the previous study,
which likely underestimated the United
States’ contribution. “They’ve put their
best estimate, as accurate as they can be

[85] with this data,” he said, and used ranges,
which underscores that the figures are
estimates.
    Of the plastics that go into the
United States recycling system, about 9
[90] percent of the country’s total plastic
waste, there is no guarantee that they’ll
be remade into new consumer goods. New
plastic is so inexpensive to manufacture
that only certain expensive, high-grade
[95] plastics are profitable to recycle within the
United States, which is why roughly half
of the country’s plastic waste was shipped
abroad in 2016, the most recent year for
which data is available.
[100]     Since 2016, however, the
recycling landscape has changed. China
and many countries in Southeast Asia
have stopped accepting plastic waste
imports. And lower oil prices have further 

[105] reduced the market for recycled plastic.
“What the new study really underscores is
we have to get a handle on source
reduction at home,” Mr. Mallos said. “That
starts with eliminating unnecessary and
[110] problematic single-use plastics.”

From: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/

TEXT

Americans May Add Five Times More Plastic to the Oceans Than Thought

    The United States is using more
plastic than ever, and waste exported for
recycling is often mishandled, according
to a new study.
[5]    The United States contribution
to coastal plastic pollution worldwide is
significantly larger than previously
thought, possibly by as much as five
times, according to a study published
[10] Friday. The research, published in Science
Advances, is the sequel to a 2015 paper
by the same authors. Two factors
contributed to the sharp increase:
Americans are using more plastic than
[15] ever and the current study included
pollution generated by United States
exports of plastic waste, while the earlier
one did not.
    The United States, which does
[20] not have sufficient infrastructure to
handle its recycling demands at home,
exports about half of its recyclable waste.
Of the total exported, about 88 percent
ends up in countries considered to have
[25] inadequate waste management.
    “When you consider how much
of our plastic waste isn’t actually
recyclable because it is low-value,
contaminated or difficult to process, it’s
[30] not surprising that a lot of it ends up
polluting the environment,” said the
study’s lead author, Kara Lavender Law,
research professor of oceanography at
Sea Education Association, in a
[35] statement.
    The study estimates that in
2016, the United States contributed
between 1.1 and 2.2 million metric tons of
plastic waste to the oceans through a
[40] combination of littering, dumping and

mismanaged exports. At a minimum,
that’s almost double the total estimated
waste in the team’s previous study. At the
high end, it would be a fivefold increase
[45] over the earlier estimate.
    Nicholas Mallos, a senior
director at the Ocean Conservancy and an
author of the study, said the upper
estimate would be equal to a pile of
[50] plastic covering the area of the White
House Lawn and reaching as high as the
Empire State Building.
    The ranges are wide partly
because “there’s no real standard for
[55] being able to provide good quality data on
collection and disposal of waste in
general,” said Ted Siegler, a resource
economist at DSM Environmental
Solutions, a consulting firm, and an
[60] author of the study. Mr. Siegler said the
researchers had evaluated waste-disposal
practices in countries around the world
and used their “best professional
judgment” to determine the lowest and
[65] highest amounts of plastic waste likely to
escape into the environment. They settled
on a range of 25 percent to 75 percent.
    Tony Walker, an associate
professor at the Dalhousie University
[70] School for Resource and Environmental
Studies in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said that
analyzing waste data can amount to a
“data minefield” because there are no
data standards across municipalities.
[75] Moreover, once plastic waste is shipped
overseas, he said, data is often not
recorded at all.
    Nonetheless, Dr. Walker, who
was not involved in the study, said it
[80] could offer a more accurate accounting of
plastic pollution than the previous study,
which likely underestimated the United
States’ contribution. “They’ve put their
best estimate, as accurate as they can be

[85] with this data,” he said, and used ranges,
which underscores that the figures are
estimates.
    Of the plastics that go into the
United States recycling system, about 9
[90] percent of the country’s total plastic
waste, there is no guarantee that they’ll
be remade into new consumer goods. New
plastic is so inexpensive to manufacture
that only certain expensive, high-grade
[95] plastics are profitable to recycle within the
United States, which is why roughly half
of the country’s plastic waste was shipped
abroad in 2016, the most recent year for
which data is available.
[100]     Since 2016, however, the
recycling landscape has changed. China
and many countries in Southeast Asia
have stopped accepting plastic waste
imports. And lower oil prices have further 

[105] reduced the market for recycled plastic.
“What the new study really underscores is
we have to get a handle on source
reduction at home,” Mr. Mallos said. “That
starts with eliminating unnecessary and
[110] problematic single-use plastics.”

From: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/

TEXTO:

An English tale

     In England there once was a man who, despite
being quite wealthy and having a loving wife plus two
wonderful children, one fine day decided to set out in
search of the Truth. He discussed the matter with his
[5] wife, made sure that all her needs would be provided
for while he was away and started out. For years he
traveled, looking for the Truth on the four corners of
the world.
    One day someone pointed to a mountain and told
[10] him, “There’s a cave up there, and some say that the
Truth lives there.” The man climbed the mountain and
found an old woman, dirty and dressed in rags, sitting
on the cave’s mouth. “Are you the Truth?” he asked
her; and she said “Yes” in such a clear and charming
[15] voice that he felt sure she was telling the truth. He
decided to stay, sharing the cave with the woman and
learning more about life and things in general. After
a year and a day, he got homesick and decided to go
back home. Truth was not opposed. As he took his QUESTÃO 22
[20] leave of the old woman he asked her what he could
do for her, considering all she had done for him. The
Truth thought for a while before raising a wrinkled
finger and replying, “When people ask about me, tell
them I am young and beautiful!”

SCHEHERAZADE. The Truth. Tale collected by folklore as performed by actress Raquel Barcha.

O TEXTO ABAIXO REFERE-SE À QUESTÃO.

Millennials Are Giving Their Babies Increasingly Strange Names

Mandy Oaklander

Sept. 29, 2016

  The people having the most kids in this country, Millennials, are giving their babies stranger and stranger names. In a time when actual people are naming their children Legendary and Sadman and Lux, that should perhaps come as no surprise.

  Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, and research assistant Lauren Dawson analyzed the first names of 358 million babies in a U.S. Social Security Administration database. Between 2004 and 2006, 66% of boys and 76% of girls had a name that wasn’t one of the 50 most common names of that time period. By contrast, in 2011-2015, 72% of boys and 79% of girls had names that were not in the top 50 most popular. In the top 10 for 2015 in the U.S. were Harper, Liam, Mason, Isabella, Olivia, Ava, and Mia. Brooklyn was ranked 31st most popular for girls across the U.S. (though not for girls in New York, where the name didn’t rank in the top 100).

  Twenge credits the rise of stranger names on our increasingly individualistic culture: one that focuses on the self and is less concerned with social rules. “Millennials were raised with phrases like, you shouldn’t care what anyone else thinks of you, you can be anything you want to be, it’s good to be different, you have to love yourself first before you love anyone else,” says Twenge. Our obsession with celebrities is also a hallmark of individualism.

  Twenge found that Millennials are much more accepting of same-sex relationships and experiences. “What we’re seeing is this movement toward more sexual freedom,” Twenge told TIME. “There’s more freedom for people to do what they want without following the traditional, often now seen as outdated, social rules about who you’re supposed to have sex with and when.”

Adaptado de: http://time.com/4511927/millennials-parents-baby-names/ Acesso em: 01º outubro 2016