In the United States alone, over 100 million cell-phones are thrown away each year. Cell-phones are part of a growing mountain of electronic waste like computers and personal digital assistants. The electronic waste stream is increasing three times faster than traditional garbage as a whole.
    Electronic devices contain valuable metals such as gold and silver. A Swiss study reported that while the weight of electronic goods represented by precious metals was relatively small in comparison to total waste, the concentration (含量) of gold and other precious metals was higher in   So-called e-waste than in naturally occurring minerals.
    Electronic wastes also contain many poisonous metals. Even when the machines are recycled and the harmful metals removed, the recycling process often is carried out in poor countries, in practically uncontrolled ways which allow many poisonous substances to escape into the environment.
    Creating products out of raw materials creates much more waste material, up to 100 times more, than the material contained in the finished products. Consider again the cell-phone, and imagine the mines that produced those metals, the factories needed to make the box and packaging(包装) it came in. Many wastes produced in the producing process are harmful as well.
    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes that most waste is dangerous in that “the production, distribution, and use of products — as well as management of the resulting waste — all result in greenhouse gas release.” Individuals can reduce their contribution by creating less waste at the start — for instance, buying reusable products and recycling.
    In many countries the concept of extended producer responsibility is being considered or has been put in place as an incentive (动机) for reducing waste. If producers are required to take back packaging they use to sell their products, would they reduce the packaging in the first place?
    Governments’ incentive to require producers to take responsibility for the packaging they produce is usually based on money. Why, they ask, should cities or towns be responsible for paying to deal with the bubble wrap (气泡垫) that encased your television?
    From the governments’ point of view, a primary goal of laws requiring extended producer responsibility is to transfer both the costs and the physical responsibility of waste management from the government and tax-payers back to the producers.

    A good modern newspaper is an extraordinary piece of reading. It is remarkable first for what it contains: the range of news from local crime to international politics, from sport to business to fashion to science, and the range of comment and special features (特写) as well, from editorial page to feature articles and interviews to criticism of books, art, theatre and music. A newspaper is even more remarkable for the way one reads it: never completely, never straight through, but always by jumping from here to there, in and not glancing at one piece, reading another article all the way through, reading just a few paragraphs of the next. A good modern newspaper offers variety to attract many different readers, but far more than nay one reader is interested in. What brings this variety together in one place is its topicality (时事性), its immediate relation to what is happening in your world and your locality now, but immediacy and the speed of production that goes with it mean also that much of what papers in a newspaper has no more than transient (短暂的) value. For all these reasons, no two people really read the same paper: what each person does is to put together out of the pages of that day’s paper, his own selection and sequence, his own newspaper. For all these reasons, reading newspapers efficiently, which means getting what you want from them without missing things you need but without wasting time, demands skill and self-awareness as you modify and apply the techniques of reading.

说明：假设你是某公司人事部职员王林，为安排一次职工的假期旅行，向某旅行社写信询问有关事宜。
内容：
(1) 询问旅游信息(如：线路、价格、折扣等)；
(2) 告诉对方参加旅游的人数和时问安排；
(3) 索要相关的资料，特别是行程安排；
(4) 告之联系方式。
Words for reference:
Travel Agency旅行社
注意信函格式！