Hello. This is 6 Minute English. I’m Neil. |
And I’m Sam. |
Now, tell me about your teeth-cleaning routine. |
OK. Well, it’s pretty good, I think. |
I brush twice a day and change my brush every couple of months. |
And what kind of brush do you use? |
Nothing fancy, just a regular, cheap plastic one. |
Oh dear! |
What do you mean? |
Well, imagine all the toothbrushes you’ve used in your life, from your first brush as a child, to the one you currently have. |
You do realise that probably they all still exist in the environment somewhere. |
We use them for a couple of months yet they will last for hundreds of years. |
Oh dear, and I thought I was actually quite environmentally aware. |
But that’s quite shocking. |
I hadn’t thought of that. |
Well it’s just one of the problems we are facing with our use of plastics. |
A marvellous invention that has given us so much. |
But we are beginning to realise it’s causing many long-lasting environmental problems. |
More on this topic shortly, but first, a question. |
Plastic has many natural variations but where was the first artificial plastic developed? |
Was it: a) England, b) Germany or c) Switzerland? |
What do you think, Sam? |
I’m going to have a guess at Switzerland. |
OK, we’ll find out if you’re right at the end of the programme. |
Environmental issues are, of course, a big story at the moment. |
The topic was featured on the BBC Woman’s Hour radio programme recently. |
Madeleine Murray is from an Irish organisation that gives advice to businesses and communities on how to operate in an environmentally responsible way. |
She was asked about what she does in her daily life that other people could do too. |
What food items does she mention? |
My personal, like, pet peeve is multipacks and minipacks. |
I buy in bulk now. I buy the biggest yoghurt I can buy. I buy big cereal boxes. I buy big shampoo bottles. |
We can decant stuff into lunch boxes and we can, you know, refill our pasta and our rice. |
So, what food does she mention, Sam? |
She talked about yoghurt, cereal, pasta and rice. |
And what was she saying about those foods? |
She was saying that she buys the biggest containers for those that she can - and not just food - things like shampoo as well. |
And what’s the benefit of that? |
Well, she says that her pet peeve is small packs of things. |
A pet peeve is something that you find particularly annoying. |
She doesn’t like small packs because they use a lot of packaging for a small amount of product. |
So she buys in bulk. |
Buying in bulk means ’buying a lot of something’. |
And if you have a lot of something like rice or pasta, you can always transfer it to different smaller reusable containers. |
She uses the word decant for this. |
So that’s one area where we can all be a bit more environmentally friendly. |
Another area is reusing things that are perfectly good but which we don’t need any more. |
Dr Tara Shine is a colleague of Madeleine Murray, |
and she talked about how new parents often buy a lot of new things for their babies, which they then throw away when the child gets too big or too old. |
She suggests that it’s better to pass these things on - to give them to other people. |
Pass things on. |
The hand-me-down, pass-thing-on culture is really, really important in the world of kids, |
and there are lots of things that can be passed down, |
whether it’s toys or the equipment, or the high chair, whatever it is, all of that can be passed on and that’s really important. |
It’s saving someone else money. Most of these things are in good nick when we need to pass them on. |
She used another expression for passing things on, didn’t she? |
Yes, she talked about the hand-me-down culture. |
When I was growing up, I had a lot of hand-me-downs. |
These were toys and clothes from my older cousins, which saved us a lot of money and they were then passed on to someone else. |
And the thing is children grow up quickly so often everything is in good condition. |
Dr Shine used an interesting expression for that, didn’t she? |
She said most of these things are in good nick. |
That expression means ’in good condition’. |
Now, before we recycle today’s vocabulary … |
Oh, very good, I see what you did there! |
It’s time for the answer to today’s question. |
Where was the first artificial plastic developed? |
Was it: a) England, b) Germany or c) Switzerland? |
What did you think, Sam? |
I guessed Switzerland. |
Well, I’m afraid, you are wrong. |
The correct answer is actually, England. |
Well done if you got that right. |
Extra bonus points if you knew that in 1856 Alexander Parkes patented Parkesine, the first artificial plastic. |
Now, let’s recap today’s words and expressions. |
Yes, a pet peeve is something that someone finds particularly annoying. |
Buying in bulk means ’buying many of the same things or a large quantity of something’. |
Buying in bulk is usually cheaper and can be better environmentally. |
And if you have a lot of something, you can decant it to smaller containers, that is, you can transfer it to those other containers to make it easier to use. |
For example: I buy huge bottles of liquid soap and decant it into smaller dispensers for the kitchen and bathrooms. |
You can pass on clothes, toys and other kids’ stuff to family and friends. |
This means ’giving them to other people to use’. |
And those things can be described as hand-me-downs. |
But of course you’d only want to pass on things in good nick, that is, ’in good condition’. |
Right, that’s all we have time for. We hope you will join us again soon, though. |
We are BBC Learning English. |
See you soon. Good-bye! |
Bye! |