The Environment: The Three Rs - Reduce

The Environment: The Three Rs - Reduce

Introduction

Jack: Hello my name’s Jack

Rowan: My name’s Rowan

Rich: and I’m Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: In the Premier Skills English podcast, we talk about football and help you with your English. 

Rowan: Don’t forget you can find the transcript for all our podcasts on the Premier Skills English website.

Rich: We are changing our weekly podcast. From this week, you will hear our weekly podcast in three parts.

Jack: Yes. We asked you for your opinions on the ideal podcast length and the majority of our listeners say that the ideal length is a bit shorter than our normal podcasts. We are going to split the podcast into three shorter parts which will make things easier to understand. 

Rowan: Not too much will change. We will always have a roleplay for you, a language focus, a task for you to complete and a weekly football phrase for you to guess.

Rich: Please let us know if you are happy with the changes either in the comments section or on Apple Podcasts.

Jack: This week’s podcast is connected to the environment. It’s Rich’s son’s birthday and we’ll be talking about birthday parties, presents and tidying up afterwards!

Rowan: In this first part, the three of us are at the supermarket.

Rich: Yes, Jack and Rowan have kindly offered to help me shop for the party. I’m awful at shopping so I need all the help I can get.

Jack: After the roleplay, we’ll look at some words and phrases connected to reducing the amount or number of things we use and buy. 

Rowan: Your task is to think about your shopping and what you could do to reduce your consumption. This might sound a bit complicated now, but hopefully, the task will make sense by the end of this part of the podcast.

Rich: If you are listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other podcast platform, you should also check out our website.

Jack: On the Premier Skills English website, you’ll find the transcript, examples and activities to help you understand the language, and a task for you to complete with other listeners.

Introduction to roleplay 1

Jack: As we said earlier, this podcast is in three parts - there will be three short podcasts in total. 

Rich: It’s my son’s birthday next week and I need to get his birthday party ready. Rowan and Jack have kindly offered to help me get the things I need. In this roleplay, we’ve just arrived at the supermarket.

Rowan: While you listen, we want you to answer a question:

Jack: The question is: What doesn’t Rich want to buy?

Roleplay 1

Rich: Thanks for giving us a hand with this, I usually end up throwing as much as possible in the supermarket trolley hoping some of it will be useful.

Rowan: I’ve planned enough children’s parties to know that you hardly ever need half the stuff that you put in your basket.

Rich: Alex keeps reminding me that it’s not a kid’s party - he’s gonna be eleven.

Jack: He’s gonna be a tween.

Rich: A tween?

Jack: You know … he’s not a teenager yet but he’s not a little kid he’s in-between … a tween.

Rich: Well, he acts like a teenager sometimes! He doesn’t want anything with superheroes or dinosaurs. He used to love dinosaurs. 

Jack: It’s all part of growing up, Rich. What about these party plates with footballs on them?

Rich: Yeah, he still likes football, fortunately.

Rowan: Did he ask for those plastic plates? You do have reusable plates at home, right? The ones that you use most days are fine. Keep it simple. 

Rich: To be honest the only thing he asked for was to play football with his friends and crisps.

Rowan: Exactly. We don’t need all these disposable plastic plates and cups then, or plastic bottles of fizzy drinks and these single-use straws.

Jack: What do you use with your kids, Rowan?

Rowan: Coloured glass bottles - I’ve had them for years. I’ve got about six - all different colours and I re-use them again and again. Usually, I just put water in them ... sometimes some orange juice. I think the kids like the colours more than anything - I only get them out when we have a party.

Rich: That sounds like a plan - better than having a bag full of rubbish to throw away after the party. 

Jack: OK, we can get lots of fresh fruit and put it in bowls. We’ll get watermelon and strawberries as they’re in season, cheap and local but then we need some crisps of course.

Rich: Here we go. We can get these multipacks - there are twenty individual bags of crisps in these.

Rowan: Come on! Think about all that excess packaging and I’m not even sure if you can recycle these. I think we’d be better of with these big bags of crisps here. We can just pour them into the bowls like the fruit.

Rich: Good idea … just need to choose a few flavours … salt and vinegar, ready salted and cheese and onion. 

Language Focus 1

Jack: Before the roleplay, we asked you a question. The question was: What does Rich decide not to buy?

Rich: Well, I decided not to buy lots of things. Things like plastic cups and plates, single-use straws and anything with too much packaging.

Rowan: Rich decided not to buy these things because he realised that he didn’t need them but maybe he was also thinking about being environmentally friendly.

Rich: Yes, I was, well, not just the environment, I was also thinking of how much things would cost and all the rubbish I’d have to throw away after the party.

Jack: Reducing the amount of waste we create and the amount of stuff we use or consume is also connected to the environment. Let’s have a look at some of the language we’ve just been using and a few words from the roleplay.

Rowan: Let’s start with a couple of words you’ve just used, Jack: reduce and consume.

Rich: To reduce means to make something smaller or less in number or size. We should reduce the speed we drive when we are driving in cities. The price of my new Sheffield United was reduced by 20% - I think it was because we’ve been relegated.

Jack: The noun from reduce is reduction. We often hear people talking about things like a reduction in costs, a reduction in unemployment or a reduction in pollution.

Rowan: The preposition we often use here is in - we say there has been a reduction in costs, a reduction in unemployment or a reduction in pollution.

Rich: The other word that Jack just used was consume. Consume is a verb and it means to use something such as food, energy or other materials. The noun form is consumption.

Jack: We often see these words: reduce and consume, reduction and consumption, when we read about the environment. We see sentences like We need to reduce our energy consumption or we need a reduction in the amount of energy we consume.

Rich: Let’s look at some more language connected to reducing our consumption of materials and the environment. Listen to this part of the roleplay again. What ideas did Rowan have that might reduce consumption?

Rowan: Exactly. We don’t need all these disposable plastic plates and cups then, or plastic bottles of fizzy drinks and these single-use straws.

Jack: What do you use with your kids, Rowan?

Rowan: Coloured glass bottles - I’ve had them for years. I’ve got about six - all different colours and I reuse them again and again. Usually, I just put water in them ... sometimes some orange juice. I think the kids like the colours more than anything - I only get them out when we have a party.

Rich: That sounds like a plan - better than having a bag full of rubbish to throw away after the party. 

Jack: Rowan thought that it was a bad idea to buy lots of plastic things for the party. She thought it would be a better idea to use things that are reusable - things that you can reuse.

Rowan: You probably know the word reuse - it means to use something again. The adjective is reusable. I reuse my bottles - I have reusable bottles because they’re better for the environment - they help me reduce my levels of consumption.

Rich: The two letters which reuse begins with are r and e and this is a common prefix which often means again. /ˈpriː.fɪks/ Reuse means use again but other words use this prefix in a similar way such as rearrange - to arrange again, rejuvenate - to make young again and recycle - to process rubbish so it can be used again.

Jack: Rowan spoke about reusing things and also not using things in the first place. She said that it’s best not to use disposable plastics and single-use straws.

Rowan: If something is disposable it is made to be thrown away after a short while and not kept. 

Rich: We were speaking about disposable plates and cups in the roleplay but there are lots of disposable items that we might decide not to use. Can you think of any others?

Jack: What about disposable razors? They’re horrible to shave with anyway - I’d only use disposable razors in an emergency.

Rich: What about disposable nappies for babies? We tried using nappies that we could wash and reuse but it was a lot of hard work.

Rowan: Yes, I think we’ve all got to decide what is possible in our everyday lives. One thing that I think we can all stop using though are single-use straws.

Jack: Yes, I agree. Straws. If you’re not sure, are thin tubes of plastic that we can put in a glass to drink from. 

Rowan: The word single-use I think is important; it is used to describe things that are made to be used once and then thrown away. These things are even worse than other disposable products.

Rich: It’s true. Straws are things hardly anyone really needs and they get thrown away straight away. I’ve tried paper straws but they’re rubbish - better not to use straws at all.

Jack: Another thing that we spoke about in the roleplay was excess packaging. Packaging is the materials that items are wrapped in when you buy them.

Rowan: I was speaking about crisps and that there were lots of little plastic bags of crisps inside another bigger plastic bag. I think this is unnecessary - there is more packaging than is necessary - there is excess packaging.

Rich: I agreed and decided to buy big bags of crisps with less packaging so there is less rubbish to throw away or recycle after the party.

Jack: To throw away - that’s a phrasal verb that we’ve used a lot in this podcast. It means to remove or get rid of something that you don’t want anymore. Most of us throw rubbish away every day.

Rowan: OK, we’ve looked at lots of language connected to reducing the amount we consume. You can find the transcript and more activities on the Premier Skills English website to help you understand what we’ve been speaking about.

TASK

Rich: In this task, we’d like you to think about what you buy when you go shopping and try to use some of the language that we have used in the roleplay. How could you change your shopping habits so you buy or consume less?

Jack: Can you buy the same things from different places where less packaging is used?

Rowan: Is there anything that you buy that you only use once before throwing it away? Is it an essential item for you or could you buy something that is less disposable?

Rich: Write all your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website or on Apple podcasts if that’s where you listen to us.

Football Phrase

Rich: It’s time for this week’s football phrase. Remember that you will hear this football phrase in all three parts of this podcast and we’ll have the answer for you in part one of our next podcast as well as in This Week which you can also watch on YouTube. 

Jack: Have you got this week’s football phrase, Rowan?

Rowan: I have. This week’s football phrase is ******* ********. On the BBC website, it says that Premier League clubs are able to have fans watch matches, but the stadiums can only open with ******* ******** because of Covid-19 restrictions. This is better than having no fans at all, but I’m looking forward to the atmosphere you get when a stadium is full.

Rich: Me too. There’s nothing like the sound of Anfield at full ******** singing You’ll never walk alone.

Jack: If you have a football phrase that you would like us to use in the podcast, just get in touch and let us know.

Rowan: Right, that’s all we have time for now but we will be back soon with the second part of this podcast connected to the environment.

Rich: Don’t forget to write your answers to our questions and make a guess at our football phrase in the comments below. If you get it right, we’ll announce your name on next week’s podcast and live on YouTube. 

Jack: If you have a question for us about football or English you can email us at premierskills@britishcouncil.org

Rowan: or you can leave your questions and comments on the website in the comments section or on our Facebook page.

Rich: or you could give us a rating and a fantastic review on Apple Podcasts.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football!