Page 122 - PortalToEnglish_3_SB_SE

6 CLIL: Science

Understanding rubbish

A Look at the pictures a-h.
If you had these objects and
you no longer needed them,
what would you do with them?

© MM Publications
a
b

B Look at the highlighted words/phrases in the text and find their
definitions in a dictionary.
c C What do you think happens to the rubbish we throw
away? Listen, read and check your answers.
What happens

d
to all the

e
rubbish?

f
If our rubbish isn’t recycled, it probably ends up in a dump or a land ill.
If our rubbish isn’t recycled, it probably ends up in a dump or a land ill.
These are areas where rubbish is left to biodegrade. This means that
microorganisms will break it down over time until it becomes part of the

g environment. Most, if not all, rubbish will biodegrade in the end, but the
amount of time this takes can be from a few weeks to millions of years.
To guess how long a piece of rubbish will take to biodegrade, you need to
know the materials it contains. Natural items, like food waste, biodegrade
very quickly, and paper also breaks down easily. However, rubbish which
contains materials that are not found in nature – like plastic – can take
hundreds of years. Scientists think that some materials, like glass, will
need even more time – if they ever biodegrade at all!
h As a result, we create rubbish much faster than it biodegrades. This is why
it’s so important to recycle. If we don’t, our environment will be polluted
for hundreds of years with our food packaging and empty bottles.

D D L ook a t the objects in e x er cise
a
e
ook
objects
the
t
er
D Look at the objects in exercise A again. How long do you think each one
cise
in
L
x
takes to biodegrade? Match the pictures a-h with the labels below.
2 months 3 months 1 year 50 years
80 years 200 years 450 years 1 million years
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