Addiction to plastic

There's no doubt about it, plastic is a problem. It causes a vast amount of pollution around the world. However, perhaps the biggest problem is that plastic is incredibly useful. So useful that it is used in a huge number of man-made items, ranging from simple plastic bags through to hospital ventilators. It is the usefulness of plastic that makes it so difficult for us to stop using it.

Listen to the BBC podcast about our plastic addiction.

Make a note of the seven vocabulary words and phrases mentioned in the podcast.

Now listen to the podcast again and complete the summary with the eight words below:

dissonance / culture / decay / psychological / tackle / activism / biodegradable / pollutes

One of the biggest problems with plastic is that it is not 1______________ meaning that it does not 2 ________ naturally. Plastic does not go away, instead it 3_________ our land, rivers and oceans. Having said that, there is no doubt that plastic is a very useful product and is very much part of our everyday 4 __________. Because plastic is both bad and good, we experience 5________ in our feelings about it, which causes us to be in some 6 __________ conflict. Nevertheless, increasingly people are displaying 7_________ in a attempt to reduce our use of plastic and 8_________ the problem of plastic pollution.

When you are ready. enter your answers in the test sheet below