📘 Part 3: Plastic use and environmental impact

This episode's vocabulary

Alternative (noun/adjective) – something you can choose instead of something else. → We need to find a sustainable alternative to plastic.

Biodegradable (adj) – capable of being broken down naturally by bacteria. → Paper is biodegradable and causes less harm to the environment.

Packaging (noun) – materials used to wrap or protect goods. → Many food items come in plastic packaging.

Unavoidable (adj) – impossible to prevent or avoid. → In some industries, the use of plastic is unavoidable.

Casing (noun) – a cover or shell that protects something. → The plastic casing of a laptop helps protect its components.

Hazard (noun) – something dangerous or risky. → Replacing plastic in electronics could create a fire hazard.

Lightweight (adj) – not heavy; easy to carry. → Plastic products are popular because they’re lightweight.

Wrapper (noun) – a piece of material used to cover something, especially food. → There were plastic wrappers all over the park.

Viable (adj) – capable of working successfully. → We need viable alternatives to plastic for daily use.

Legislate (verb) – to make or enact laws. → Governments can legislate to reduce single-use plastics.

Incentivise (verb) – to encourage someone to do something by offering rewards. → They launched a programme to incentivise plastic recycling.

Hectic (adj) – very busy and full of activity. → People with hectic lifestyles may rely more on single-use plastic.

Microplastic (noun) – tiny pieces of plastic that pollute the environment. → Microplastics have been found in drinking water supplies.

Leach (verb) – to leak or seep into another substance. → Chemicals from plastic can leach into water and soil.

Saturate (verb) – to fill completely, often excessively. → The environment is becoming saturated with plastic waste.

Single-use (adj) – intended to be used once and then thrown away. → Single-use plastics are one of the biggest pollution problems.

Recyclable (adj) – able to be processed and used again. → Not all plastics are recyclable, which adds to the problem.

Sustainable (adj) – able to be maintained without harming the environment. → We need sustainable packaging solutions.

Waste management (noun) – the process of dealing with garbage and recycling. → Proper waste management is essential to reduce plastic pollution.

Public awareness (noun) – how much people know about a specific issue. → Increasing public awareness can help reduce plastic consumption.

Questions and Answers

Maria: How can we reduce our use of plastic?

Rory: Well, switching to alternative materials would be a good start. Paper and cardboard are relatively harmless and biodegradable, so using them as packaging as much as possible would be good. And indeed, they do this now for lots of products which used to be in plastic packaging.

Maria: Do you think we should use plastic products?

Rory: I mean, in some circumstances it's unavoidable, isn't it? For example, the hardened plastic casing on laptop computers couldn't be easily substituted by something else. Or at least not without turning the laptop into a fire hazard.

Maria: Why do people like to use plastic products?

Rory: Well, I'm not so sure they do like using them. It's just a lack of viable alternatives. Like I said before, sometimes using various plastic products is just unavoidable. They might like the products because they're cheap and lightweight. That would make sense. But that's less about the material and more about what it does for people or what it allows them to do.

Maria: What kinds of plastic waste are often seen in your country?

Rory: Oh wow, it would be easier to talk about what isn't seen, frankly speaking. It's a Western country, so there's a huge amount of plastic products and packaging that gets used on a regular basis. Much of it is like wrappers and food packets for food that get thrown away after the food inside of them has been eaten.

Maria: Do you think we can do without plastic altogether in the future?

Rory: Well, if alternatives that work well and can be easily mass-produced become available, then I don't see why not. We would definitely need a replacement, though. It's not like we can just abandon it overnight. Too many industries rely on the use of plastics for that to be viable.

Maria: What can the government do to reduce plastic pollution?

Rory: I'm not sure there is much the government can do, really. It's tempting to think they can enact laws and legislate the problem away, but that wouldn't be very effective if there's nothing to replace them with. With that in mind, I suppose they could encourage investment in the development of alternative products and launch programmes to incentivise their use. That might be more effective.

Maria: Do you think that people could reduce their plastic waste?

Rory: I think they could. Whether they will or not is entirely up to them because different people have different needs. So, if it's someone like me, then I could do without a great deal of plastic, but maybe someone with a more hectic lifestyle who doesn't have the time to make these sorts of decisions couldn't do that.

Maria: But what do you think, in the future, will plastic waste be reduced?

Rory: Well, I want to say yes, because people are more conscious of the fact that plastic can do damage to the environment. For example, things like microplastics leaching into water supplies can be a problem. So now that we're aware of this, and the consequences it has as they start to saturate ourselves, we should be seeing less, but people don't always make the right decisions, and sometimes change can be hard. So the jury's out.

Maria: Thank you Roy for your answers.

Rory: No worries.

Discussion

Maria: A very specific topic, dear listener, yeah, let’s get into it. So we reduce our use of plastic or we reduce plastic waste. Waste is just waste, we don’t say wastes.

Rory: Well, you can, but you wouldn’t be talking about… Yeah, wastes, I think, refers to areas of land, if I'm right. I think also, yes, here we go, a large area of barren and uninhabited lands, yeah, like the icy wastes of the Antarctic, according to Google.

Maria: Yeah, but here we talk about rubbish, so in this context, we use just waste, plastic waste. People throw away their waste, okay, so just like waste, careful.

Rory: And this is why it's important to be aware of this, not just because it looks good for the examiner, because you didn't make a mistake, but because the potential for the mistake to cause a miscommunication is there.

Maria: We reduce our plastic waste by switching to alternative materials. So we use alternative materials, not plastic. For example, paper and cardboard are harmless, so they don't do any harm. So instead of plastic, people can use paper or cardboard, because they are bio- what?

Rory: Biodegradable, just means when you leave them out in the open, they just decompose and go into the soil or wherever they're going. I should say, that's relatively harmless and biodegradable. For example, some of the chemicals which are used to treat cardboard in order for it to be used in this way could also be quite harmful to your health and could also leach into the soil. So it's not like this is a solution that solves all of our problems, it's a relatively less harmful solution, I think at least.

Maria: Biodegradable, dear listeners, something that is able to decay naturally, so it disappears naturally and usually is not so harmful as other chemicals. So biodegradable packaging, for example. And people could start using biodegradable packaging. Also, dear listener, people can avoid using single-use plastics. And here we can say plastics, meaning different kinds of plastics. People could avoid using grocery bags, like plastic bags or plastic wrap, straws, coffee cups, and plastic coffee cups, so just stop using them. People could stop buying bottled water, okay? So just use glass, don't buy plastic bottles. People could cook more, all right?

Rory: No, no they could not.

Maria: Yes, they could. Just cook more. No take-out containers, Rory. You see, food take-out containers are made from plastic normally, so carry-out bags are plastic, so cook more. Purchase items second-hand, so just second-hand items. Recycle, yeah, and just buy eco-friendly packaging. So pretty much, what, Rory… like non-plastic packaging, there you go. So biodegradable packaging or non-plastic packaging. Sometimes it's unavoidable, so we can't avoid plastic. Plastic is everywhere, actually.

Rory: It's even inside, you know, thanks to microplastics, amazing.

Maria: Viable alternatives. So alternatives is like some other options, like paper and cardboard, but viable, if something is viable, it's able to work. C2 level word, yay, Band 9!

Rory: Really?

Maria: Yeah, viable.

Rory: Why is it always these words that are just so random?

Maria: Yeah, but it's quite difficult to use viable in the accurate context, you see.

Rory: No, it's not. Give me a question. Pick a random question.

Maria: All right, there we go. All right, okay, there we go. A random question. All right, Rory. Is there life on Mars?

Rory: Well, I don't actually think it's viable because the atmosphere is so toxic and thin that it's just impossible for life to exist there. Maybe in the past, but certainly not now. See, it's not viable.

Maria: Nice.

Rory: Use the word viable.

Maria: It won't work, right? Usually, we say that it's not a viable plan. The plan won't work. You can say that we don't have alternatives to plastic or we don't have viable alternatives to plastic. And people use plastic because it's cheap and lightweight. So it's light.

Rory: That was a strange question, though. Why do people like plastic?

Maria: Yeah, like? Like, oh yeah, plastic. I like the smell of plastic. Like, yum, yum, yum. Like I like the plastic inside my body.

Rory: They like what plastic can do for them. I don't think they like the plastic itself unless you have some bizarre fascination with materials.

Maria: And Rory told us that there's a huge amount of… Rory, amount of plastic products. What? Amount of plastic waste, but not products.

Rory: Grammatically. Maybe...

Maria: It's wrong.

Rory: If I say the word amount, it's because I say it's like they're an amorphous mass of things as opposed to just individual parts. That's my explanation and I'm going with it.

Maria: This is kind of a slip, a native speaker's slip, which is OK for Band 9. And normally these days people say there's a huge amount of people, there's a huge amount of books, of products, but it's grammatically, still, it's grammatically incorrect. But it's OK because it's only once and yeah, for Band 9 it's OK. So you can say that there's a huge amount of plastic packaging, all right? And to be on the safe side, say there's a huge number of plastic products and you can name some of them, for example, wrappers. Wrappers are something that we wrap a product in, so packaging, or packets for food, containers for food, bottles. And also, dear listener, to be even more specific for Band 9, you can say that we have micro and nanoplastics. Rory, do you know what they are, micro and nanoplastics?

Rory: I'm going to guess that nanoplastics exist at the atomic or subatomic level and bind to things there and that causes problems, maybe. If we talk about nanoscale technology, then that's usually at extremely small levels, below microscopic.

Maria: Yeah, and dear listener, you can learn just one word, polyethylene, polyethylene, polyethylene?

Rory: Polyethene?

Maria: Polyethylene.

Rory: Oh, polyethylene, OK.

Maria: Polyethylene, yeah, polyethylene. Dear listener, can you pronounce this? No? Well, then you can say just PET plastics. And here, when we talk about different kinds of plastics, yeah, you can say plastics, because PET, poly, oh, I can't pronounce it. Rory, say it again.

Rory: Polyethylene. At least, I think that's what you're saying. Polyethylene is a type of plastic, but there's another one, polyurethane, I think, is used to create plastic bags.

Maria: Yeah, so polyethylene is used in bottles and food packaging, or dear listener, PET plastics, you can say. Yay.

Rory: What's that? Oh, is that polyethylene?

Maria: Yeah, it's the same. And another one is, oh, oh my God, polypropylene, so a type of plastic used for many purposes such as food packaging and artificial fabrics.

Rory: Of course.

Maria: So dear listener, yeah, for Ben 9, like you can say like polypropylene or PP, or just...

Rory: No, you won't be able to say that, because you'll have to explain what it is for the examiner.

Maria: Yeah, yeah, because the examiner might not know what this PP and PET mean. Or you just can stick to microplastics and nanoplastics. And microplastics are tiny plastic particles, little plastic thingies, yeah, that are used to...

Rory: Maria is just absolutely giving up.

Maria: No, it's just so difficult. I won't remember all this like polypropylene, polypropylene, yeah, I might remember polypropylene. Yeah, so micro and nanoplastics, there you go, dear listener, yay. We can live without plastic, or we can't do without plastic like we can't live our life without plastic, like we can't do without plastic. So, alternatives could work, and there is a replacement. Plastic products could be substituted with something, or they could be replaced with something, and a noun is there are replacements. And I don't think that we can abandon plastic altogether, overnight. Abandon like stop using plastic, or can you imagine, just McDonald's, think about McDonald's, how much plastic do they use, eh? McDonald's, hello, if you just want to sponsor our podcast, go ahead.

Rory: Yeah, but only if we're saying nice things about them. As far as I'm aware, McDonald's packaging is actually mostly paper-based, so they've done at least one thing right.

Maria: Really? So they don't use any plastic?

Rory: Well, I think mostly. In this country, for example, the straws are paper-based, and then on top of that, the packaging that things come in is cardboard as well.

Maria: Oh, oh, oh, oh. McDonald's uses a variety of packaging materials, including paper and plastic.

Rory: Oh, I can imagine so, but like, what I'm saying is that it's not a huge amount. There are things that are definitely not plastic. I think it would be too expensive.

Maria: Yeah, McDonalds.com, we are working to accelerate solutions that help reduce waste, while also transitioning to sustainable packaging. Yeah, so they kind of, they want to use more ecologically friendly packaging. Interesting. Yum, yum, yum. Okay, dear listener, where are we? Plastic. Mm-hmm. And then Rory used Viable again. He says, too many industries rely on the use of plastics for that to be viable. And Rory, here, you mean like, industries should be viable, like, industries use plastics to be viable, to work, right? What do you mean, viable, in this sentence?

Rory: Oh, well, for that to be viable would be for some sort of ban on plastics to work. That reverts to the legislation that would do that, or the removal of plastic overnight. It's important to point out that overnight does not mean in one night. It means in a very short space of time, which makes it an idiomatic expression. Probably C2.

Maria: C5.

Rory: Doesn't go that high.

Maria: The government can do something to reduce plastic pollution, and people, so individuals, can do something. The government can enact laws against plastic. Enact. So, kind of, can introduce, implement laws. The government can legislate the plastic problem. So, pretty much, like, introduce new laws, legislations, regulations to reduce plastic. They could encourage investment in the development of alternative products. So, the government could encourage, like, make people invest, investment in the development of non-plastic products or alternative products. The government can launch programmes to reduce plastic, like, launch programmes, start programmes. And a very nice word is incentivise.

Rory: To incentivise something just means to make people want to do it, or to find ways of encouraging people to do it. So, for example, the government incentivises various charities by giving them tax cuts. So, lots of charities are started, and they receive their tax breaks because they know they won't have to pay tax. They're more likely to work.

Maria: Also, you can say that the government can encourage the paperization trend. Paperization is like everything should kind of be packaged with paper. So, paper is a substitute for plastic packaging. Substitute for, like, a replacement for. So, the paperization trend. Everything is in paper, not in plastic. So, one of the trends in 2025. Yay. Yes, and also the government could invest in waste management. So, just how we manage our waste. And Rory, here I have some information about plastic waste statistics 2025. Okay? Are you ready, dear listener? You should know. So, it's like a welcome to Maria's school of important facts from the internet.

Rory: I have a feeling since we're about to talk about plastic waste, this is probably not going to be good news, is it?

Maria: No, no, no, no. So, 91% of plastic waste globally remains unrecycled.

Rory: Oh, God.

Maria: Oh, my God. And most of it ends up in landfills or the ocean. So, most of our plastic, dear listener, ends up in landfills. Landfills, what are landfills?

Rory: Giant holes in the ground that you throw things in and cover them over to hide the fact that they were ever there.

Maria: Or the ocean, dear listener. The ocean is polluted with plastic. By 2025, global plastic waste is projected to reach 460 million tonnes annually. Oh, wow. So, dear listener, every year, like in 2025, the population of the world will produce 460 million tonnes of plastic. I can't imagine this. Can you imagine, Rory? I just, I don't understand. These are just figures. Oh, and plastic, plastic accounts for 10% of all waste generated worldwide. Wow. Only 10% of waste?

Rory: What's the rest of it?

Maria: What's the rest of it?

Rory: If you think about things like food waste, if we are including sewage, then obviously people are generating that on a daily basis.

Maria: Waste generated worldwide. Dear listener, have you ever thought of how much waste you generate? And like, how does plastic waste harm the environment? So, first of all, ocean pollution, so plastic is in the ocean. We have this The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it's just plastic, a patch of plastic is in the ocean. It's called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. So, threats to wildlife, animals eat plastic, then they die, birds, animals, soil contamination, soil is polluted with chemicals, air pollution, burning plastic waste releases harmful gases. Yeah. And how can we reduce our plastic usage is avoid using single-use plastics like bottles, improve recycling rates, support sustainable alternatives, so go for eco-friendly alternatives, non-plastic materials. Interesting.

Rory: It's terrifying.

Maria: I know, I know. But I wonder, like, what kinds of waste are there in the world? Do we have a list? Oh, yeah, there you go. Food and green waste, paper waste, plastic waste, glass waste. And food is pretty much, like, 44%.

Rory: It's nuts. And on that positive note, hopefully this episode has not been a waste of your time.

Maria: Well, now you know, okay? So, Maria's School of Education is over, and we'll see you in our next episode, okay? Bye! Maria's School of Education. How do you like this? School of Education, okay?

Rory: That's crazy. Bye!

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