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VOA标准英语2008年-Volunteers Clear Trash, Making World's Oceans C

时间:2008-11-25 07:40来源:互联网 提供网友:amendachen   字体: [ ]
    (单词翻译:双击或拖选)

The ocean is our planet's life-support system, but it's getting clogged1 with trash. Discarded beverage2 bottles, plastic bags and cigarette butts3 kill countless4 seabirds, marine5 mammals and sea turtles each year. But each September, on the third Saturday of the month, the volume of trash decreases a bit, thanks to the Ocean Conservancy's annual cleanup. As VOA's Faiza Elmasry reports, the International Coastal6 Cleanup Day is part of a year-round effort to keep the world's oceans and waterways clean, safe and healthy.
 
Every year, Jamie Romeo joins other volunteers to pick up trash on Durand Eastman Beach, New York

On Sept. 20, 23-year-old Jamie Romeo joined other volunteers to pick up trash on a local beach. She's been doing that every year since she was 8 years old, when she participated for the first time in the International Coastal Cleanup Day.

"After reading about it in the local public library, I had gone to my parents and said, 'This sounds interesting. How do we participate?'" she says. "My parents always said, 'If you want to do something, you got to do the work for it.' So, we contacted the American Littoral7 Society and the Ocean Conservancy, and that year we had about eight or 10 of us neighborhood kids go down and cleaned the beach."

Romeo is now coordinator8 for the Annual International Cleanup event in Monroe County, New York, and beach captain of the Durand Eastman Beach.

"When we first started doing this event, that particular beach wasn't open to public swimming," she says. "It wasn't really well maintained. We used to find a lot of what I refer to as 'intentional9 debris10,' where you find tires, some construction debris. Now since the beach is open to some public swimming, there is more attention to this area. But, we're still finding a significant amount of garbage, but now it's more of coastal debris, cigarette, disposable dinnerware, the garbage that one person might think, 'Well, if I put a little bit of this, it's not going really to hurt anything.'"
 
Ocean Conservancy President Vikki Spruill says tons of trash pose a serious threat to the marine ecosystem11

But those little bits of garbage have a huge cumulative12 impact. Ocean Conservancy President Vikki Spruill says every year, volunteers around the world clear away tons of trash that pose a serious threat to the marine ecosystem.

"To give a very specific example," she says, "a sandwich bag that seems innocent when it's being packed into your lunchbox, when it's discarded of improperly13 and ends up in our waterways and ultimately in the ocean, can be mistaken for a jellyfish. Something like a sea turtle, for example, sees that bag, eats it, and it results in death."

What's now a trash collection day in 127 countries and all 50 U.S. states and American territories began as a cleanup of a single beach in 1986.

"The International Coastal Cleanup began about 23 years ago with an employee from the Ocean Conservancy who lived in Texas and who was very frustrated14 by the conditions of her beach in her community," Spruill says. "And she started a cleanup. A quarter century later, we have almost half a million people participating around the globe, which makes it very, very exciting for families, individuals, friends and children to go out and really make a difference in a very hands-on way in helping15 to solve this global problem.
 
On International Coastal Cleanup Day, trash is collected in 127 countries and all 50 U.S. states

"This is not just about our beaches. It's about our waterways, our rivers, our lakes and streams, because they are all connected and everything ultimately ends up in the oceans."

The Palisadoes -- a long strip of sand that almost completely encloses Jamaica's Kingston Harbor -- is littered with thousands of plastic bottles and other trash, and every September, it's cleaned up. Carlette Falloon, of the Jamaican Environment Trust, says this year 300 volunteers helped in the effort.

"The majority of them are from high schools, teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18," she says. "We do have older volunteers from service clubs and general members of the public and staff members of our corporate16 sponsors. We were very excited about this year's cleanup because we were able to have a lot more groups doing cleanups across the island, another indication that interest is growing and more persons are really concerned about the health of our coastline."

The event itself, Falloon says, is another educational opportunity for the volunteers and their communities.
 
Youth around the world volunteer during the event to help solve this global problem

"Before the event, we had two training sessions for the volunteers," she says. "So we brought together site coordinators and train them on how to collect the debris. We conducted a survey. We asked them questions about what they knew about marine debris, what effect did they think it has on marine life and the marine ecosystem. Then afterwards, we asked them the questions again to see what they learned about what they saw on the [Palisdoes] Strip."

Documenting what volunteers find is an important part of the cleanup, according to the Ocean Conservancy's Spruill.

"We don't only pick up the trash. We count it and we publish a report every year," she says. "We tend to look at the collective and accumulative impact, because the purpose of this event is to provide a global snapshot, if you will, of a moment in time to help us continue to tell the story every day of the year about why this is an important problem in our oceans."

Spruill says distributing this information to government officials, environmental advocates and journalists is key in explaining the hazards of ocean debris and in urging every person to take responsibility for protecting shorelines and waterways all year long.

 


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 clogged 0927b23da82f60cf3d3f2864c1fbc146     
(使)阻碍( clog的过去式和过去分词 ); 淤滞
参考例句:
  • The narrow streets were clogged with traffic. 狭窄的街道上交通堵塞。
  • The intake of gasoline was stopped by a clogged fuel line. 汽油的注入由于管道阻塞而停止了。
2 beverage 0QgyN     
n.(水,酒等之外的)饮料
参考例句:
  • The beverage is often colored with caramel.这种饮料常用焦糖染色。
  • Beer is a beverage of the remotest time.啤酒是一种最古老的饮料。
3 butts 3da5dac093efa65422cbb22af4588c65     
笑柄( butt的名词复数 ); (武器或工具的)粗大的一端; 屁股; 烟蒂
参考例句:
  • The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。
  • The house butts to a cemetery. 这所房子和墓地相连。
4 countless 7vqz9L     
adj.无数的,多得不计其数的
参考例句:
  • In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
  • I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。
5 marine 77Izo     
adj.海的;海生的;航海的;海事的;n.水兵
参考例句:
  • Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
  • When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时,他自愿参加了海军陆战队。
6 coastal WWiyh     
adj.海岸的,沿海的,沿岸的
参考例句:
  • The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
  • This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。
7 littoral J0vx5     
adj.海岸的;湖岸的;n.沿(海)岸地区
参考例句:
  • We should produce the littoral advantage well.我们应该把海滨的优势很好地发挥出来。
  • The reservoir sandstone was believed to have been deposited in a littoral environment.储集层砂岩就被认为是近海环境的沉积。
8 coordinator Gvazk6     
n.协调人
参考例句:
  • The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下,负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
  • How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室?
9 intentional 65Axb     
adj.故意的,有意(识)的
参考例句:
  • Let me assure you that it was not intentional.我向你保证那不是故意的。
  • His insult was intentional.他的侮辱是有意的。
10 debris debris     
n.瓦砾堆,废墟,碎片
参考例句:
  • After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
  • Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上,导致蛀牙。
11 ecosystem Wq4xz     
n.生态系统
参考例句:
  • This destroyed the ecosystem of the island.这样破坏了岛上的生态系统。
  • We all have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem.维持生态系统的完整是我们共同的利益。
12 cumulative LyYxo     
adj.累积的,渐增的
参考例句:
  • This drug has a cumulative effect.这种药有渐增的效力。
  • The benefits from eating fish are cumulative.吃鱼的好处要长期才能显现。
13 improperly 1e83f257ea7e5892de2e5f2de8b00e7b     
不正确地,不适当地
参考例句:
  • Of course it was acting improperly. 这样做就是不对嘛!
  • He is trying to improperly influence a witness. 他在试图误导证人。
14 frustrated ksWz5t     
adj.挫败的,失意的,泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 );挫败;使受挫折;令人沮丧
参考例句:
  • It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
  • The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
15 helping 2rGzDc     
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
参考例句:
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。
16 corporate 7olzl     
adj.共同的,全体的;公司的,企业的
参考例句:
  • This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
  • His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。
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TAG标签:   voa  标准英语  volunteer  clear  voa  标准英语  volunteer  clear
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