📙 Part 2: Describe a time when you saw a lot of plastic waste

This episode's vocabulary

Plastic waste (noun) – discarded plastic materials that pollute the environment. → The park was covered in plastic waste after the picnic.

Rubbish (noun) – garbage or trash. → There was rubbish scattered all over the street.

Strewn (adj) – scattered or spread untidily over a surface. → Leaves were strewn across the garden.

Heatwave (noun) – a prolonged period of excessively hot weather. → The heatwave made it difficult to stay outdoors.

Barbecue (noun) – a social event where food is cooked outside on a grill. → They had a barbecue in the backyard last weekend.

Discarded (adj) – thrown away or gotten rid of. → The discarded bottles were piling up near the river.

Bins (noun) – containers for garbage. → Please put your trash in the bins provided.

Constructive (adj) – helpful or useful, especially in improving a situation. → She gave constructive feedback to help me improve.

Clear up (phrasal verb) – to clean or tidy an area. → Volunteers helped clear up the beach after the festival.

Avoid (verb) – to stay away from or prevent something. → You should avoid touching your face during flu season.

Enthralled (adj) – fascinated or very interested. → The children were enthralled by the magician's performance.

Shared spaces (noun) – public areas used by many people. → Parks and playgrounds are shared spaces in the community.

Garbage (noun) – waste material, especially from homes or public places. → The garbage was collected early in the morning.

Tidying up (verb phrase) – cleaning or putting things in order. → She spent the afternoon tidying up her room.

Services (noun) – organisations or systems that provide public help, like cleaning or maintenance. → The city services ensure the streets are clean.

Littering (noun) – the act of improperly disposing of trash in public places. → Littering is a major problem in urban parks.

Pollution (noun) – the presence of harmful substances in the environment. → Plastic pollution harms wildlife and oceans.

Sustainability (noun) – the ability to maintain ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources. → Recycling helps promote sustainability.

Awareness (noun) – knowledge or understanding of a particular issue. → Environmental awareness campaigns encourage people to recycle.

Responsibility (noun) – the state of being accountable or having a duty. → We all have a responsibility to keep our environment clean.

Questions and Answers

Maria: You should say where and when you saw the plastic waste, why there was a lot of plastic waste, what you did after you saw it, and explain what your thoughts were about this.

Rory: Well, I wasn't very impressed the other day when I was walking through the park near my home, this must have been a couple of weeks ago now, and I was going for my normal morning walk when I was treated to the sight of all this rubbish strewn all over the place. It had been like a mini heatwave the day before, and lots of people had descended on the place to soak up the sun, evidently they'd done things like have barbecues, ordered food there and brought their own picnics as well, and some had just up and left their discarded packaging all over the place for me to find the following day. I'm not sure why they felt they could get away with that since lots of other people had clearly disposed of their stuff in the bins provided, but some people just left things, and that wasn't great.

I wish I could say I did something constructive after I came across all of this, but in all honesty, there was just too much to deal with by myself, so I just had to keep going past it and then complain about it to people after. Sometimes that's all you can do in these situations. And it did ultimately get cleared up, which was good, I just wish it didn't have to come to that, it all could have been so easily avoided. I suppose it should be obvious now that I wasn't exactly enthralled with the whole situation. People really need to learn to take better care of shared spaces like that and not just leave garbage lying around. Hopefully, in the future, it'll be less of a problem, but I'm not holding out much hope of that happening because this park is quite popular, and we've had these kinds of issues in the past, but on this particular occasion, it was particularly bad.

I'm not really sure what can be done about it, other than to just keep complaining and hoping that the services will tidy up and continue to do their job properly.

Maria: And do you often see much plastic waste?

Rory: In this place? Yes, increasingly so, and in general too, actually.

Discussion

Maria: You should say where and when you saw the plastic waste, why there was a lot of plastic waste, what you did after you saw it, and explain what your thoughts were about this.

Rory: Well, I wasn't very impressed the other day when I was walking through the park near my home, this must have been a couple of weeks ago now, and I was going for my normal morning walk when I was treated to the sight of all this rubbish strewn all over the place. It had been like a mini heatwave the day before, and lots of people had descended on the place to soak up the sun, evidently they'd done things like have barbecues, ordered food there and brought their own picnics as well, and some had just up and left their discarded packaging all over the place for me to find the following day. I'm not sure why they felt they could get away with that since lots of other people had clearly disposed of their stuff in the bins provided, but some people just left things, and that wasn't great.

I wish I could say I did something constructive after I came across all of this, but in all honesty, there was just too much to deal with by myself, so I just had to keep going past it and then complain about it to people after. Sometimes that's all you can do in these situations. And it did ultimately get cleared up, which was good, I just wish it didn't have to come to that, it all could have been so easily avoided. I suppose it should be obvious now that I wasn't exactly enthralled with the whole situation. People really need to learn to take better care of shared spaces like that and not just leave garbage lying around. Hopefully, in the future, it'll be less of a problem, but I'm not holding out much hope of that happening because this park is quite popular, and we've had these kinds of issues in the past, but on this particular occasion, it was particularly bad.

I'm not really sure what can be done about it, other than to just keep complaining and hoping that the services will tidy up and continue to do their job properly.

Maria: And do you often see much plastic waste?

Rory: In this place? Yes, increasingly so, and in general too, actually.

Maria: Yay! Thank you, Rory, for your story, so dear listener, describe a time when you saw a lot of plastic waste. So, you were walking in a park, or on the street, on the beach, somewhere in a garden, outside, or maybe inside, in a museum, for example, and there was a lot of rubbish. So plastic and bi-plastic waste. What do we mean by plastic waste?

Rory: Well, just anything plastic that is not essential to the product or that exists after it's been used or consumed. So that could be things like packaging, I suppose it could also be things like components of products as well. Sometimes you have these things that you can remove from products in order to use them effectively.

Maria: Yeah, so coffee cups, some glasses, cosmetics, like packaging, like all sorts of stuff, or like bottles, caps, food containers, bags, like plastic bags, wraps, wraps like wrappings that we wrap a product in. So pretty much any rubbish, okay, you can also talk about a situation when you saw a lot of rubbish, rubbish, waste, litter, or garbage, dear listener, all right? And the situation is in the past, so when you saw it, and you should use the past simple or past perfect. Rory started his story by saying something like: when I was walking through the park, when I was walking through the park, or when I was walking along the street, or when I was going home, I saw a lot of rubbish, a lot of plastic waste. And when was it? A couple of weeks ago, last week, last month, and you can feel free to lie, just imagine that last week you saw a lot of plastic waste.

Rory: I went for my normal morning walk, or I was jogging, I was running, I was walking with my friends.

Maria: And then I was really annoyed because there was all this rubbish in the place I live.

Rory: Yeah, and then I saw all this rubbish, like all over the place, when rubbish is all over the place, it's just scattered all over.

Maria: Or strewn. Strewn, strewn is like thrown, yeah?

Rory: Yeah. I suppose, I doubt it was thrown around by the people, but the wind could have done that. Either way, they should be tidying these things up, so this does not happen.

Maria: Yeah. So, I saw a lot of rubbish thrown all over the place, so people threw it, or I saw a lot of rubbish, or I saw a lot of plastic waste strewn, strewn all over the place. So, to strew is a verb, to strew, s-t-r-e-w, spread things in an untidy way. So, the rubbish was strewn across the lawn, or the park was strewn with litter. And you can say, like, I was walking in the park, and the place was strewn with litter, with rubbish. And it was very hot that day, so it was a mini heat wave. And lots of people went to the park to soak up the sun.

Rory: I thought about that as the words left my mouth, I was like, that's a bit of a cliché. But it's a fact, especially in this country, you have to take advantage of these things whenever you can.

Maria: Yeah, like, when you soak up the sun, you soak up the atmosphere, you kind of enjoy something that's around you. Like, I went to the beach to soak up the sun, or you, dear listener, should soak up everything that we tell you, yeah. And people had barbecues, they ordered food, so what people did, they brought their own picnics, they had picnics, and they left a lot of packaging all over the place. So they left a lot of plastic waste. So they left a lot of discarded packaging. You no longer needed discarded food containers. So you just, you eat your food, and then you just throw away the container from your food. So there was a lot of discarded packaging all over the place. If people throw away the rubbish, they dispose of rubbish. So some people had disposed of their stuff in the bins. So garbage bins, rubbish bins are places where you throw rubbish. So people, some people disposed of their stuff, of the rubbish in the bins. But others threw everything all over the place. Rory, did you start collecting the stuff?

Rory: No, no, I just passed by and did nothing.

Maria: Why not, Rory, you know?

Rory: Well, first of all, it was my morning walk. So it's like, I only have 20 minutes to do this, and then I need to go and work. And second of all, it's not my responsibility to clean up after other people. It's their responsibility. So I really feel strongly about this. People should be looking after shared spaces, such as parks and beaches, not just because other people live there, but also because they presumably want to enjoy them in the future as well. So I think they should be a bit more mindful of these things.

Maria: Yeah. So if you see something unexpectedly, you can say that I came across it. So you were walking in the street, ta-ta-ta, la-la-la, listening to IELTS Speaking for Success podcast, hey, and then like, bam, a lot of rubbish. So I came across a lot of plastic waste, or I came across a lot of rubbish or litter. A good structure is I wish I could. So when you express regret, you didn't do something, but you wanted to, I wish I could do something about it, but I didn't, or I could have done something constructive about it. I could have picked the rubbish, I could have picked it up and put it in the bin, but I didn't do it. So I could have done it. I could have cleared the rubbish. I could have put it in the bin, but I didn't have time. I could have thrown it away. Yeah, could have. I could have done it. So I had to keep going. So kind of, I saw it, I had to keep going past it. So when you walk past it, you just walk and forget about it.

Rory: And do nothing. It sounds really bad for me.

Maria: Yeah. And then you complain about the people.

Rory: Yeah.

Maria: You complain about the people who had done it, right?

Rory: I hate doing that, but like, I have a limited number of hours in the day and I have classes to teach. So I can't be a bin man at the same time.

Maria: Ultimately, it got cleared up. So somebody cleared it up. So clear up, clear up the mess. So who usually does the job? Who is responsible for clearing up the rubbish?

Rory: I don't know. Council service workers, perhaps, is probably their technical title. I don't know what you call them in general. They will have different names in different countries.

Maria: But in general, like who cleans the streets?

Rory: Well, some of them are called street cleaners, but others are not. Sometimes they have a job that means they do this and they do other things. So for example, if you're a street cleaner, all you do is clean the streets. But if you're a service worker, then you might do that one day and then a different day you do something else. So it depends on how your country is managed, to be honest.

Maria: But you can say like street cleaners, I think the most general term, like street cleaners should do it or city council should be responsible for this.

Rory: Well, or some kind of neighbourhood association, perhaps. But the fact is there should be someone managing the situation, I feel.

Maria: About your feelings, dear listener, you can say I was really annoyed. I was irritated and very nicely said I wasn't exactly impressed with the whole situation. So it wasn't impressive. And this means that Rory was annoyed.

Rory: Yes, that's conveyed by the tone of voice. Actually, that might be another thing you can do to improve your pronunciation. Practise sounding angry while saying something pleasant about it. So I wasn't exactly thrilled or I wasn't exactly pleased.

Maria: Yeah, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the whole situation. So pretty much like I didn't like it at all. And people shouldn't leave garbage lying around like that. Leave rubbish lying around all over the place.

Rory: So when rubbish is everywhere, people shouldn't leave garbage lying around like that. And hopefully, in the future, you can say things about the future. Hopefully, in the future, it will be less of a problem. To be less of a problem. And Rory, do people litter usually where you live? Well, not so much that the place looks like a dump or a garbage tip, but it's still fairly... It's enough to be annoying when you see it. And I feel like once it starts, it only gets worse.

Maria: Sweet. Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our next episode about waste and rubbish and plastic use and pollution. Interesting, exciting topics, aren't they, dear listener? See you! Bye!

Rory: Bye!

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