Professional Documents
Culture Documents
T V NG Environment and Pollution
T V NG Environment and Pollution
Examiner: How has this pollution had an impact on daily life, do you think?
I think there are two key areas which have been most affected – firstly, our health, as
air pollution is terrible in the city centre because too many workers commute and rely
heavily on their cars rather than travelling by public transport and there are many traffic
jams. Secondly, on the quality of crops and in rural areas, where the use
of pesticides and chemical fertilizers in farming has contributed to a dangerous
amount of pollutants in foods.
Sadly, in my opinion, not nearly good enough. I know in many European countries,
the mantra of reuse and recycle plastics and cardboards has become automatic but
here there is still a culture of throwing everything away and most domestic as well
as industrial waste is incinerated. Obviously, this policy just contributes to worsening
air pollution and to plastic being thrown into the sea.
I would like to describe a moment when I was on holiday a few years ago in a really
beautiful part of India on holiday with a group of friends. We had been travelling around
India for a month and I think I had adjusted to seeing a huge amount of waste on the
streets. Not surprisingly, there were very limited facilities for recycling – this is not
really part of the culture and it would require a huge investment to put in place the
equipment and education programme needed.
We were travelling on a train and had been sleeping as it was a very long journey and
early the next morning when we pulled into the station, everyone leaned out of the
window and purchased bottles of water, cups of tea and hot food from excited street
sellers on the platforms.
I was happy to join in with the locals and without even thinking drank my water then
threw the bottle back out of the window which is something I would never have done
back home. It wasn’t until later that I understood the consequences of this action.
After winding through the countryside for hours, the train finally reached the coast. I was
stunned – rather than a beautiful, clear blue stretch of ocean, all I could see
was plastic waste – bottles, bags, food packaging as well as larger items of industrial
items were just floating, interspersed with a few seabirds who looked utterly confused
and were not really able to swim.
I could clearly see the impact of my careless action on the train and the problem of
plastics in the ocean became horribly evident. With no other way of disposing of
rubbish, the temptation, indeed, the default had become to simply throw bottles and
bags on the ground or into the sea, river or lake and so much of this has ended up in
the ocean. Since then I have been rigorous about waste and campaigned to make sure
my local town has widely available recycling bins for all.
While quite a lot has been done already to highlight this terrible problem, I think more
could be done to make sure the public know the dangers. Apparently around 350
million tonnes of plastic are being produced each year and around 8 million tonnes of
plastic enter the ocean every year.
I think many manufactures should work really hard to reduce the use of what is
called single-use applications, plastics which are used just once and then disposed of
as this makes up approximately half of all plastics. Plastic can quite easily be recycled
and used again for shampoo bottles for example. Some large companies have already
started only using recycled plastics for their own- brand products and this kind
of policy should be rolled out as widely as possible.
Examiner: What would you say to children who are faced with this problem for
the future?
I would try to encourage teachers and parents to explain the situation to youngsters but
also to try and be positive about what can be done. Firstly, we all need to be much
more careful about recycling which is not impossible and should start at school as well
as in the home.