BBC 6 Minute English — The impact of plastic

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Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Alice and I'm Neil. Hello. Hello, Neil. Have you been shopping? Yes I went a bit mad with my credit card actually Gosh I can see that But look at all those plastic bags Why don't you use your own bags You know what I'm going to Because they're now charging 5p per bag Don't you follow the news Neil It's a recent government initiative which means a new plan for dealing with something in this case to cut the number of thin plastic bags being given away in shops And the environmental impact of plastic is the subject of today's show Is England the first country to charge for these bags Alice No other countries in the UK started charging a few years ago And countries around the world including Bangladesh South Africa China and Italy have actually banned them altogether Interesting But I don't throw my bags away Alice I put them under the kitchen sink Are you a hoarder Neil That means someone who collects large amounts of stuff and can't throw things away Maybe I am But seriously with the 5p charge I'm definitely going to recycle my plastic bags Good Now let me ask you today's quiz question Neil: How many tonnes of plastic rubbish from the UK is being sent to China each year for recycling Is it a 20 000 a 200 000 or a 2 000 000 Well I think it's a 20,000. We'll find out if you're right or wrong later on But first why are plastic bags bad for the environment Because they're too thin And when they break all your shopping falls out That must be it No They take hundreds of years to decompose or break down by natural chemical processes And also people don't dispose of them properly They litter our streets They clog or block drains and sewers They spoil the countryside and damage wildlife Well that's quite a list So what's the solution then Alice Well to either recycle or stop using plastic bags But let's hear about the pharmaceutical company with another idea This is BBC reporter John Maguire At this company laboratory in North London they're testing how bags made with a special additive break down when exposed to sunlight oxygen and heat The technology was discovered by a British scientist in the 1970s and is now sold to around half the world's countries In some biodegradable bags are backed by law And biodegradable means able to break down naturally in a way that isn't harmful to the environment So adding small amounts of a chemical to the plastic a special additive allows the plastic to break down in the open air But if the technology was discovered back in the 1970s why aren't these biodegradable bags being used in every country by now I have no idea Alice Maybe they aren't as strong as non-biodegradable bags I like a good strong bag myself you see Alright Well just go and buy yourself some canvas bags Neil In fact I'll get you some for your birthday Thank you. You're very welcome Now moving on Out of around 300 million tons of plastic produced every year some goes in landfill a place where our rubbish is buried under the earth but about 10% of plastic ends up in the sea Let's listen to Biologist Dr Pennie Lindeque from Plymouth Marine Laboratory talking about this We're already finding that there's a lot of microplastics in the sea and that some of these microplastics are actually being ingested by the zooplankton that live there We're also concerned this could end up being passed up through the food chain to food which is destined for human consumption so it could end up on your or my plate What are microplastics, Alice? They're small plastic fragments less than 5mm in size You find them in cosmetic products such as facial scrubs shower gel and toothpaste And I'm guessing that ingested means ‘eaten'? Yes the zooplankton tiny little animals in the sea mistake the microplastics for food and eat them And because the zooplankton and humans are in the same food chain they're at the bottom and we're at the top but we're still connected we may end up eating them and the microplastics inside them That doesn't sound very tasty Now a food chain by the way refers to a series of living things where each creature feeds on the one below it in the chain Indeed OK Remember my question from earlier I asked: How many tonnes of plastic rubbish from the UK is being sent to China each year for recycling Is it a 20 000 a 200 000 or a 2 000 000 And I said a 20,000. Yes but you're wrong I'm afraid The answer is a 200 000 tonnes And that statistic comes from the University of Cambridge in the UK That's a load of rubbish! Get it load of rubbish? Very good. Can we hear today's words again please? We certainly can Here they are: initiative hoarder decompose clog biodegradable additive landfill microplastics ingested zooplankton food chain Well that brings us to the end of this 6 Minute English We hope you enjoyed today's environmentally-friendly programme Please do join us again soon Bye.