Page 105 - TTTP_3_SB_SE

Modules
CLIL: Science 5 7

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. Look at the highlighted words/phrases in the text and find
b their definitions in a dictionary.

C. What do you think happens to the rubbish we throw away?
Listen, read and check your answers. 
c

What happens
d

to all the rubbish?

e

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
or a
These are areas where rubbish is left to biodegrade. This means that
f microorganisms will break it down over time until it becomes part of the
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

g 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!
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.

h

D. Look at the objects in exercise A again. How long do you
think each one 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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