This text has been adapted from an article published on the Pew Re

This text has been adapted from an article published on the Pew
Research Centre website.
The Pew Research Centre is an open source website. It carries
out research on a range of topics and focuses mainly on the US.
This research focusses mostly on social attitudes and opinions.
The Pew Research Centre claims to provideunbiased views.
Articles published on the Pew Research Centre website are not
peer reviewed.
FK grade level 7.7
FK reading ease 56.5
799 words
< K2 – 83.6%
How America’s diet has changed over time
GLOSSARY
Adapted from
Desilver, D. (2016, December 13). How America’s diet has

changed over time. Retrieved July 22, 2019, from Pew Research
Center website: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2016/12/13/whats-on-your-table-how-americas-diet-has-
changed-over-the-decades/
grain (n);a food group including wheat, barley, oatmeal and
rice. Grains are used to make food products such as bread, pasta
and biscuits.
consume (v); use, eat or drink e.g. We now consume much more
sugar than our grandparents did.
dramatically (adv) / dramatic (adj); describing a large
difference e.g. Dubai has changed dramatically in the past 30
years.It’s completely different now.
decade (n); 10 years
equivalent (adj); equal to / the same as
fructose (n);a type of sugar which is made from plants (sugar
cane, sugar beet, corn).
wheat (n);a type of grain which is used to make both bread and
pasta
prior (adj);before e.g. Prior to 2010, most people watched
television as a family. After that point, however, personal
devices such as tablets became much more popular.
peak (v, n); (to reach) the highest point e.g. Generally, the
temperature peaks between 2:00pm and 3:00pm. After that
point, it goes down again.
Americans eat more chicken and less beef than they used to.
They drink less milk – especially whole milk – and eat less ice
cream, but they consume much more cheese. Their diets include
less sugar than in prior decades but contain considerably more
corn-derived sweeteners. And while the average American eats
the equivalent of 1.2 gallons of yogurt a year, he or she also
consumes 36 pounds of cooking oils – more than three times as
much as in the early 1970s.
Americans’ eating habits, in short, are confusing and do not
form a clear pattern, at least according to our analysis of U.S.

Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. The USDA’s results
seem in line with the Pew Research Center’s recent survey on
food and nutrition attitudes. In this survey, 54% of Americans
said people in the U.S. pay more attention to eating healthy
foods today compared with 20 years ago. The same percentage
who said Americans’ actual eating habits are less healthy today
than they were 20 years ago. While 73% of Americans said they
were very or fairly focused on healthy and nutritious eating,
58% said that most days they probably should be eating
healthier.
To find out how Americans really eat and how that has changed
over time, we analyzed data from the USDA’s Food Availability
(Per Capita) Data System, or FADS, to find out. While the
nation’s eating habits do not change all that much from year to
year, looking at them over 40 or more years shows some
significant changes.
Americans eat much more than we used to: The average
American consumed 2,481 calories a day in 2010, about 23%
more than in 1970. That’s more than most adults need to
maintain their current weight, according to the Mayo
Clinic’s calorie calculator. A 40-year-old man of average height
and weight who’s moderately active, for instance, needs 2,400
calories; a 40-year-old woman with the same characteristics
needs 1,850 calories.
Nearly half of those calories come from just two food groups:
flours and grains (581 calories, or 23.4%) and fats and oils
(575, or 23.2%), up from a combined 37.3% in 1970. Meats,
dairy and sweeteners provide smaller shares of our daily caloric
intake than they did four decades ago. However, consumption of
fruits and vegetables has also dropped in percentage terms
(7.9% in 2010 versus 9.2% in 1970).
Most of the fats consumed in the US are in the form of
vegetable oils: soybean, corn, canola and other oils used as
ingredients or in which foods are cooked. Such oils contributed
402 calories to daily diets in 2010. While butter consumption, at
3.3 pounds (1.5kgs) per person per year, is about the same as it

was in 1970, margarine use has fallen dramatically, from a peak
of 7.2 pounds (3.25 kg) per person per year in 1976 to 2.1
pounds (slightly less than a kilo) in 2010.
Several interesting shifts are happening within food groups. For
the past decade, for instance, chicken has topped beef as the
most-consumed meat. In 2014, Americans ate an average of 47.9
pounds (21 and a half kilos approximately) of chicken a year,
compared to 39.4 pounds (1.7 ounces a day) of beef. While
average chicken consumption has more than doubled since
1970, beef has fallen by more than a third.
Regarding dairy products, Americans are drinking 42% less
milk than they did in 1970: 12.6 gallons (47.6 litres) a year.
However, we’re eating a lot more cheese: 21.9 pounds (10 kg) a
year, nearly three times the average annual consumption in
1970. Yogurt has increased dramatically in popularity, from
levels close to zero in 1970 to almost 1.2 gallons (4.5 litres) per
person per year in 2014 – a 1,700% increase.
Americans consume 29% more grains, mostly in the form of
breads, pastries and other baked goods, than they did in 1970 –
the equivalent of 122.1 pounds (over 55 kg) a year. However,
this figure is actually down from 2000, the year of “peak grain,”
when per capita annual consumption was 137.6 pounds (almost
62.5 kg). While corn products are a slightly bigger part of the
average American diet (14 pounds/6.3 kg per person per year,
up from 4.9 pounds/2.2 kg in 1970), wheat is still the country’s
most popular grain.
America’s sweet tooth peaked in 1999, when each person
consumed an average of 90.2 pounds (almost 41 kg) of added
caloric sweeteners a year, or 26.7 teaspoons a day. In 2014,
sweetener use was down to 77.3 pounds (35 kg) per year, or
22.9 teaspoons a day. (Note that those figures don’t include
noncaloric sweeteners, such as aspartame, sucralose and stevia.)
While most of the sweetener consumed in 1970 was refined
sugar, the market is now almost evenly split between sugar and
corn-derived sweeteners, such as high-fructose corn syrup.

The text below is adapted from a report available on the
Greenpeace website. Greenpeace is an organisation which aims
to bring environmental problems to light and help to find
solutions for these problems.
This report is open source and can be accessed on the internet
without any payment or password. There is no indication that
the content of this report has been peer reviewed before
publication. However, the report provides a substantial list of
references which allow us to check the facts it provides.
1115 words
FK Grade 7.0
FK Readability 58.2
< K2000 lexis: 79.5%

From Smart to Senseless: The Global Impact of 10 Years of
Smartphones
GLOSSARY
Adapted from:
Jardim, E. (2017). From Smart to Senseless: The Global Impact
of 10 Years of Smartphones. Retrieved from Greenpeace
website: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-
content/uploads/2017/03/FINAL-10YearsSmartphones-Report-
Design-230217-Digital.pdf
upgrade (v); to add something new to an old machine or device /
to buy a new and better device to replace an old one e.g. I like
my old phone but it’s starting to get a little slow. I think I’ll
upgrade to the latest Samsung next month.
carbon footprint (n); the amount of carbon which is produced by
a person, a thing or an activity e.g. If you take the train instead
of flying, you will reduce your carbon footprint.
rapidly (adv);quickly e.g. As soon as she started playing sport,
she lost weight rapidly.
e-waste (n);electronic devices, such as mobile phones, laptops
and tablets, which have been thrown out.
incinerator (n); a place where rubbish is burned
landfill (n); a large hole where rubbish produced in a city is

dumped. When this hole is full of rubbish, it is generally
covered over.
smelt (v); to heat metals (e.g. gold, silver, copper, aluminium)
and turn them into liquid
supply chain (n): the people, activities and companies which
work together to make a product e.g.
depletion (n);reducing the number, quality or strength of
something e.g. The depletion of natural forests around the world
means that less oxygen is produced by trees.
energy intensive (adj); describing something which takes a large
amount of energy
In 10 short years, smartphones have changed the world, and
have fuelled massive profits across the sector. But we cannot
afford another 10 years of the same model. Now is the time to
change the business model and get it right.
In 2007, almost no one owned a smartphone. In 2017, they are
seemingly everywhere. Globally, among people aged 18-35,
nearly 2 in every 3 people own a smartphone.1 In just 10 years,
more than 7 billion smartphones have been produced. But as
smartphones have spread across the world, the race to
constantly upgrade devices that is fuelling record profits across
the technology sector is also causing an ever-widening impact
on the planet and the countries where these devices are
manufactured. Examples of this impact can be seen in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, where metals for these devices
are mined, often in unsafe conditions. Workers involved in the
production of mobile phones can also find that their health
suffers because of exposure to dangerous chemicals during
phone assembly. Regarding their environmental impact, the
increasing complexity of these devices means they take more
and more energy to produce, increasing their carbon footprint
and a failure to recycle is contributing to rapidly growing
amounts of e-waste.
All this for a gadget that the average consumer in the United

States uses for just over two years.2 And sadly, the problems
with smartphones do not end when a consumer is ready to repair
or upgrade their phone. Major smartpho ne manufacturers are
increasingly making it more difficult to replace the battery or
add more memory. As a result, all the resources, energy, and
human effort expended to make each phone are wasted if the
phone is damaged, needs a new battery, or the user outgrows the
storage capacity. This greatly reduces the lifespan of the
product and drives demand for new products and maximum
profit.
Starting with the release of Apple’s first iPhone, smartphone
sales have soared, increasing year after year. In 2007, roughly
120 million smartphone units were sold worldwide. That
number climbed to over 1.4 billion in 2016.3 By 2020,
smartphone subscriptions are expected to hit 6.1 billion, or
roughly 70% of the global population.4 Among 18 to 35 year
olds, smartphone ownership is already 62% globally, and in
some countries, such as the United States, Germany, and South
Korea, it tops 90%.5
While part of the increasing rate of smartphone sales is caused
by first-time buyers, 78% is estimated to be attributed to
existing smartphone consumers replacing their phones.6 In the
United States, the average replacement cycle was just over 2
years, at 26 months. Even though most smartphones still
function for far longer than this, roughly two thirds of American
consumers choose to upgrade for the latest features.7
Indeed, the current business model for both manufacturers and
service providers depends on the frequent replacement of
devices. This model does not take into account the long-term
impacts of the production and disposal of all these devices—
more than 7 billion since 2007.8
Generally speaking, phones are predominantly made up of a
combination of metals including rare earth elements, glass, and
plastic. Aluminium, cobalt, and gold are just a few of the more
than 60 elements used to make advanced electronics such as
smartphones, and they are obtained from mining operations

around the world, or in some cases, from recycled materials.
Plastic is made from crude oil, and while some larger electronic
devices contain some post-consumer recycled plastic, this is
still unusual in smartphone manufacture. Integrated circuits,
such as memory chips, CPUs, and graphic chips are critical
components of smartphones. These are made up of silicon
wafers, the making of which requires a great deal of energy and
water.9
While the amount of each element in a single device may seem
small, the combined impacts of mining and processing these
precious materials for 7 billion devices, and counting, is
significant. The search for ever increasing amounts of these
materials damages the earth and could potentially lead to the
depletion of critical elements, such as indium, which is
estimated to have just 14 years of supply.10
Despite these problems, the majority of the materials used to
make smartphones are not recycled at the end of the product’s
life. In 2014, less than 16% of global e-waste was estimated to
be recycled in the formal sector—much of the rest likely went
to landfill or incinerators or was exported11 where dangerous
informal recycling operations threaten the health of local
communities.12
Even when e-waste is handled by a formal recycler, the complex
design of smartphones makes safe and efficient recycling
challenging. As they are difficult to take part, these devices are
often sent for smelting. Given the small amounts of a wide
diversity of materials and substances in small devices, smelting
is inefficient, or incapable, at recovering many of the materials,
and plastics are burned in the process.
Electronics manufacturing is highly energy intensive and its
energy footprint is growing significantly, as the volume and
complexity of our electronics devices continues to expand.
Various lifecycle analyses find the manufacturing of devices is
by far the most carbon intensive phase of smartphones,
accounting for nearly three quarters of total CO2 emissions.20
Since 2007, roughly 968 TWh has been used to manufacture

smartphones. That is almost as much electricity for one year’s
power for India, which used 973 TWh in 2014.13
Smartphones have become increasingly energy efficient over the
years, which has helped to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions produced when we use these devices. Despite these
improvements, the manufacturing phase remains incredibly
reliant on fossil fuels. The vast majority of smartphone
production occurs in Asia. China alone accounts for 57% of
global telephone exports.22 In China, the energy mix used to
power manufacturing plants comes from an electricity grid
dominated by coal, at 67% —a key factor driving the high
carbon footprint of electronics devices, which in turn
contributes to global warming. While a few smartphone
companies have begun to report GHG emissions associated with
the manufacturing of their products, including from their
suppliers, Apple is the only major smartphone manufacturer
who has committed to making its supply chain 100% renewably
powered. Since making this commitment, Apple has signed two
major contracts for renewable electricity in China. Two of its
suppliers have also made a commitment to become 100%
renewably powered, and Foxconn has committed to build a 400
MW of solar plant to power its Apple's iPhone factory in
Zhengzhou.15
The smartphone is perhaps one of the best examples of human
inventiveness of all time. However, further innovation is needed
to improve our current wasteful and harmful system of
manufacture and use. As IT companies have shown again and
again, technology and creativity can be used as powerful forces
to change outdated business models. Leading IT companies can
become the greatest supporters of “closed-loop” production
(production which uses only recycled materials) model and a
renewably powered future.

1. Pew Research Center, February, 2016, “Smartphone
Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging
Economies” http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/02/22/smartphone-
ownership-and-internet-usagecontinues- to-climb-in-emerging-
economies/
2. Recon Analytics, February 2015, “2014 US Mobile Phone
sales fall by 15% and handset replacement cycle lengthens to
historic high” http:// reconanalytics.com/2015/02/2014-us-
mobile-phone-sales-fall-by-15- and-handset-replacement-cycle-
lengthens-to-historic-high/
3. Gartner Newsroom, March 11 2009, “Gartner Says
Worldwide Smartphone Sales Reached Its Lowest Growth Rate
With 3.7 Per Cent Increase in Fourth Quarter of 2008”
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/910112
4. Ericsson Mobility Report, June 2015,
http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2015/ericsson-mobility-
report-june-2015.pdf
5. Pew Research Center, February, 2016, “Smartphone
Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging
Economies” http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/02/22/smartphone-
ownership-and-internet-usagecontinues-to-climb-in-emerging-
economies/
6. Strategy Analytics, December 2016, “Global Smartphone
Sales by Replacement Sales vs. Sales to First Time Buyers by
88 Countries: 2013– 2022”
https://www.strategyanalytics.com/strategy-
analytics/blogs/smart-phones/2016/12/23/78-of-global-
smartphones-will-be-sold-toreplacement-buyers-in-
2017#.WKcjVJgrKqA
7. Recon Analytics, February 2015, “2014 US Mobile Phone
sales fall by 15% and handset replacement cycle lengthens to
historic high” http:// reconanalytics.com/2015/02/2014-us-
mobile-phone-sales-fall-by-15- and-handset-replacement-cycle-
lengthens-to-historic-high/

8. Gartner and IDC. See Appendix A.
9. Eric D. Williams, Robert U. Ayers, and Miriam Heller,
September 2002, “The 1.7 Kilogram Microchip: Energy and
Material Use in the Production of Semiconductor Devices”
https://www.ece.jhu.edu/~andreou/495/Bibliography/Processing/
EnergyCosts/ EnergyAndMaterialsUseInMicrochips_EST.pdf
10. Geological Survey of Queensland, September 2014, “Indium
opportunities in Queensland”
https://www.dnrm.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_
file/0019/238105/indium.pdf
11. Baldé, C.P., Wang, F., Kuehr, R., Huisman, J., United
Nations University, 2015, “The Global E-waste Monitor – 2014”
https://i.unu.edu/media/unu. edu/news/52624/UNU-1stGlobal-E-
Waste-Monitor-2014-small.pdf
12. Labunska, I., Abdallah, M A.-E., Eulaers, I., Covaci, A.,
Tao, F., Wang, M., Santillo, D., Johnston, P. & Harrad, S.,
Greenpeace Research Laboratories, November 2014, “Human
dietary intake of organohalogen contaminants at e-waste
recycling sites in Eastern China”
http://www.greenpeace.to/greenpeace/?p=1835w.greenalliance.o
rg.uk/a_circular_economy_for_smart_devices.php
13. Greenpeace USA, January 2017, “Clicking Clean: Who is
Winning the Race to Build A Green Internet?”
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/
publications/Campaign-reports/Climate-Reports/clicking-clean-
2017/24 Apple, September 2016, “Apple joins RE100,
announces supplier cleanenergy pledges”
http://www.apple.com/newsroom/2016/09/apple-joinsre100-
announces-supplier-clean-energy-pledges.html
14. Apple, October 2015, “Apple Launches New Clean Energy
Programs in China to Promote Low-Carbon Manufacturing and
Green Growth” http://
www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/10/22Apple-Launches-New-
Clean-Energy-Programs-in-China-To-Promote-Low-Carbon-
Manufacturing-and-Green-Growth.html

This text has been adapted from an article published on the Pew Re

This text has been adapted from an article published on the Pew Re

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