Questões de Vestibular de Inglês - Substantivos e compostos | Nouns and compounds

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

combination of littering, dumping and 

     President Donald Trump’s main healthcare policy initiative has been working to fulfill his campaign promise to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act(ACA), commonly known as Obamacare. He expressed his support for the House and Senate bills that proposed modifying parts of the ACA. The House passed its bill — the American Health Care Act of 2017 — but members of the Senate have been unable to agree on a final replacement plan, leaving most of the provisions of the ACA in place. Republicans did take one step towards changing the ACA by eliminating the law's individual mandate, which took effect in January 2019. In October 2017, the Trump administration took actions to modify the ACA. Trump issued an executive order directing members of his Cabinet to create rules that would allow small businesses to collectively buy health insurance through association health plans, expand shortterm health coverage, and expand the use of Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs). The order did not make direct changes to existing health insurance rules; instead, it directed agencies to consider new rules that would be subject to a notice and comment period. Trump said that he is still committed to passing a bill to repeal and replace the ACA. Before signing the executive order on October 12, 2017, Trump said, “Today is only the beginning. In the coming months, we plan to take new measures to provide our people with even more relief and more freedom. (…) And we’re going to also pressure Congress very strongly to finish the repeal and the replace of Obamacare once and for all. We will have great healthcare in our country..”.

(Available in: https://ballotpedia.org. Adapted.)