Practice English Listening B2 Exercises – Waste

A

1 T   2 F   3 T   4 F   5 T   6 F

B

2   Jeremy Irons keeps things a long time, until they are worn out, e.g., jumpers (British English for sweaters), cars. He doesn’t like waste.

4   Vangelis is Jeremy’s friend.

6   She spent a year talking to people – communities and experts

I = interviewer, C = Candida Brady

Part 1

I    What were you hoping to do by making the film Trashed?

C   Well, I think, um, the role of the film, um, for me was to raise awareness, um, on the topic and get it into the press so that people could start having a…a meaningful conversation about waste, which, um, is not a particularly, um, attractive subject, let’s say.

I    How many countries did you film in?

C   We ended up actually filming in 11 countries, um, but the stories that I’ve chosen are universal, and obviously I spoke to… to people in communities, um, in more countries, um, than we actually filmed in. Um, but their stories are certainly not isolated: they were repeated around the world, sadly, wherever you kind of want to pick, actually.

I    How did you persuade Jeremy Irons to get involved in the film?

C   I had worked with Jeremy some years ago on a…on a different film, and I was generally aware that he doesn’t like waste, either. Um, he will, you know, wear his jumpers until they’re worn out; he’ll keep his cars until they’re falling apart, you know; he’ll repair everything – so he’s always seen, you know, the value in reusing things. It’s just something natural to him as well, so he just felt like a natural, um, first approach, and…and so I sent him the treatment and amazingly he…he loved it.

I    How did you get Vangelis to write the soundtrack?

C   Well, Jeremy and Vangelis have been friends for years, so, um, Jeremy sent him the rough cut of the film and Vangelis absolutely loved it. He…he is also a committed environmentalist, so he’s always been aware. Um, he was aware because he worked with, um, Cousteau – sort of various people, you know – he was aware of issues for the seas and so on, um, but generally, again, he was very shocked, um, by the film and really wanted to get involved, so…

I    What research did you do before you started making the film?

C   I spent about a year, um, talking to communities, talking to experts, um, you know, obviously reading an awful lot, um, and, um, just ingesting it all, because obviously, again, it’s such an enormous topic to take on.

A

1 trying not to make it too depressing   2 water

B

1 wonderful   2 ruined   3 cheerful   4 solutions   5 plastic

6 food

Part 2

I    Trash isn’t very attractive visually. Was that a problem for you as a filmmaker?

C   Uh…yes and no, um, strangely enough. Obviously, I had a wonderful, um, DOP – Director of Photography – so, um, he can pretty much make anything look beautiful, I think. But, um, I wanted to choose – as…as I’ve said earlier, um, you know, I did a lot of research, and so sadly, these things were repeatable and… and in every country around the world – so I wanted to choose, um, beautiful places wherever possible, um, that had been ruined, unfortunately, by, um, man-made rubbish. So, um, the ancient port of Saida in Lebanon – um, the fact that, you know, you’ve got this huge mountain of waste which was formerly a flat sandy beach.

I    Documentaries about how we’re destroying the planet can be very depressing. Was that also a challenge for you?

C   A huge challenge, yes. Um, I would have preferred to make a much more cheerful, um, documentary than, um, I think Trashed is. I think it has got hope, um, I think ’cause we were very much aware that we wanted to offer solutions at the end of it, but you are…um, the subject is not a cheerful subject. Um, I could have gone further, I think, with it, but I didn’t want to because actually, you know, you could sort of end up feeling that you just want to go and shoot yourself, which is not what I wanted. I wanted to feel that, you know, people feel that they can make a difference to this topic.

I    In the film, you focus on air pollution, land pollution, and water pollution – which do you think is the most worrying?

C   Um, if I had to pick one, um, which I would be reluctant to do… uh…it would be water, without a doubt. I think that what has happened to all of the oceans – and beaches, actually, as well – um, in the world in the last thirty years is astonishing in the scale and the speed. Um, you know, there are certain places in the world, that, you know…that you have to dig down on a beach, um, over a foot before you’ll find sand that doesn’t have plastic in it. Unfortunately, what’s happened with the way that soft plastic degrades in water is that, um, the pieces become so fragmented that they’re the same size as the zooplankton, um, which obviously is in the food chain.

A

1   She tries not to blame one person.

2   Because San Francisco shows that zero waste can be achieved on a big scale.

3   No

B

1   They have four different bins, and signs on the wall of what goes into each bin, so it’s very easy to recycle.

2   She spent a lot of time with her grandparents when she was growing up. They taught her not to waste anything because they had lived through the war.

3   She still rides the bike she got when she was 15.

Part 3

I    Who do you think is mostly to blame for the problems we have with waste?

C   I tried very hard, actually, not to blame one person or things, um, in the film – actually quite deliberately, because I think in a way, um, it lets us off the hook, um, and it also, um…I think we all need to work on the…the problem together because it’s too complicated to blame one person or one thing or one act, or, um, you know, I think it’s…it’s multi-faceted, unfortunately.

I    Your film finishes on an optimistic note with the example of San Francisco’s zero-waste policy. Can you tell us a bit about that?

C   Well, I…I actually in the film ended up, um, using San Francisco as the example because I wanted to show…uh…that zero waste could be achieved on a big scale. When you go and stay in San Francisco in your hotel room, you’ll have four different bins, and you’ll have signs on the wall of what goes into each bin, so it’s very, very easy to…to recycle, and I think that’s a huge part of what we should be doing.

I    Has the film changed your own habits regarding waste?

C   I don’t think the film has particularly changed my own habits dramatically, um, because I’ve always been thrifty, um, by nature because, um, I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with my grandparents when I was growing up, and the post-war, sort of, philosophy of never wasting anything, it just, you know, it was instilled in me.

I ride the same bicycle that I’ve had since I was fifteen years old, and over the years obviously had it repaired and repaired, but I take tremendous pride in the fact that I’ve always, um, ridden the same bike, and, you know, I have lovely memories of it, so – and with it – so, um, I think…I think we need a slight change of mindset to make things cool the longer you have them, in a way, than actually this perpetual thing of buying new things for the sake of it.

A

possible but difficult

B

1 S   2 J   3 J   4 S   5 S   6 Sy   7 J   8 Sy   9 J

I = interviewer, J = Joanne, S = Simon, Sy = Syinat

I    Do you think we will ever be plastic free?

J    That’s such a huge topic…

S   That’s a massive topic.

J    …isn’t it? But actually it’s an area − we’ve got to be plastic free ultimately. We’ve certainly, if we don’t, if we’re not plastic free, we need to find an alternative, don’t we?

S   I think, um, businesses particularly − perhaps in the food and beverages industry − are already starting. I noticed in a pub the other day, they’ve changed the straws from plastic to cardboard − sorry, to, to paper − which is a step in the right direction…

J    It’s a step, it’s a step.

S   It’s a small step, but it’s a step, but at least they’re taking notice and doing things like that.

J    Yeah, agreed. I think it’s got to be customer-led though, don’t you?

S   Yeah.

Sy   Yeah, yeah.

J    We consumers have got to push it.

Sy   Yeah, yeah.

J    Because if we don’t demand paper straws and we keep saying actually no we have to have plastic…

S   Yeah absolutely.

J    …they’re going to keep producing plastic.

S   I mean, I don’t know about you, but I recycle, it seems like a bag a week of plastic − I can’t believe how much plastic there is.

J   I know, mmm. It’s really awful actually.

Sy   Yeah. And it’s very hard to be plastic free.

J    It is actually.

S   It is.

J    I mean, if you try really hard − and I do try hard − um, if you go and you shop in supermarkets, it’s incredibly hard to…

Sy   Yeah.

J    …buy organic in non-plastic.

Sy   Everything is wrapped.

S   I think there are some businesses now that you can take your plastic items with you to the shop and fill up with goods rather than taking plastic away from − I think that’s a good start, but it’s such a small thing. It needs to be much bigger.

Sy   But that’d be very difficult on a large scale, I believe.

S   It would be a lot − it would be difficult because mass consumers wouldn’t want to do that. Especially…

Sy   Yeah, no, but if you think about it, eight billion people, three meals a day…yeah, so, food and beverages would be…

S   I was reading a story the other day − apparently, we sent some plastic to China and they’ve now sent it back to us in containers saying “Actually, we’re not recycling your plastic, you need to, you need to do it where you are rather than sending it to us.”

J    Yes, and that gets us onto the other topic: it’s not just stopping using new plastic, it’s recycling what’s already out there, because the the, amount that’s out there at the moment is just scary.

S   And the amount that’s killing whales or getting caught in whales or, or dolphins or fish is just…

Sy   Turtles, yeah.

J    Oh my goodness and did you see, the, you know the Mariana Trench?

Sy   Yeah!

J    The deepest place on the planet…

S   It’s full of plastic.

J    …and they found plastic. I mean, that’s just so depressing, isn’t it?

S   It’s depressing. So…

J    I think, I think the awareness is there now and that’s got to be positive, right?

Sy   Yeah!

S   So plastic free, I think there has to be some sort of − if you said plastic free five years, that’s never going to happen, if you said ten years, that’s probably not gonna happen, but if you said maybe twenty years, potentially it could happen, but there has to be new ways of recycling plastic − and then not just not using it, that’s the hardest thing I suppose.

Sy   I’m sure, I’m sure you guys have heard the fact that there’s more plastic in the sea by weight than there are fish.

J    Yes, isn’t that awful?

S   Yeah, it’s very scary!

J    Actually, it’s the time frame, I think, is quite significant as well. That actually this has happened really since my grandmother was a child − she never had plastic.

Sy   Yeah, we’re talking past century.

J    Yeah! Really, less. More like a half-century. I can’t remember the exact date, but something like that − it’s a reasonably short time, and we’ve really got less than that, a lot less than that to turn it around, so we have to come up with alternatives. But surely we can do that!

Sy   I have some positive news for you.

S   Go on.

Sy   So they have found bacteria that have evolved to digest nylon plastic…

S   Yes, I knew about that.

Sy   …just naturally. That’s amazing!

J    So we could get there.

S   So plastic munchers that can munch plastic − is that what you’re saying?

Sy   Yes.

J    Yeah.

S   Cool!

J    And you can get plastic bottles − I read you can get plastic bottles now − that are on sale somewhere in London, one of the museums I think − plastic bottles that actually you can then eat the plastic.

S   Oh wow. OK.

Sy   Really?

J    I think that’s just so amazing.

S   That sounds pretty, that sounds pretty cool.

J    So yes, we think we could be plastic free, it’s possible, but…

Sy   But it’d take a lot of work.

S   I think it will. Cool.

S   Yeah.