1. When disruption equals protection
Dutch Supermarket Introduces Plastic-Free Aisle
By Christopher F. Schuetze
Feb. 28, 2018. The New York Times
A supermarket in the Netherlands wants to make it easier ___ the planet and easier ___ its customers to
avoid adding to the mountains of plastic waste generated every day.
On Wednesday, the supermarket, Ekoplaza, an upmarket chain, introduced what it ______________ as
the world’s first plastic-free aisle in a store in Amsterdam.
There, shoppers found groceries, snacks and other sundries — but not an ounce of plastic. The
___________ are packaged in compostable materials or in glass, metal or cardboard.
Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet, an advocacy group that has pushed the concept, said the
initiative was “a _____________ moment for the global fight against plastic pollution.”
The plastic-free aisle ______________ about 700 items, including meats, sauces, cereals, yogurt and
chocolate.
“It’s not just a marketing trick, it’s something we worked __ for years,” Erik Does, the chief executive of
Ekoplaza, said in an interview.
The opening of the supermarket aisle comes ___ the idea of banning plastic, or at least making more of it
recyclable, gains supporters around the world.
In January, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain called for plastic-free aisles in supermarkets in a speech
____________ a 25-year environmental plan. The same month, the European Union ___________ ____
a plan to make all plastic on the European market recyclable by 2030.
“If we don’t do anything about this, 50 years ________ _____ ________, we will have more plastic than
fish in the oceans,” Frans Timmermans, the vice president of the European Commission, the European
Union’s executive body, told reporters in January.
Items in the European Union’s cross hairs: drinking straws, plastic bottles, coffee cups and lids — none
of which were ______________ to shoppers browsing the new aisle in western Amsterdam on
Wednesday.
Plastic packaging has become so _____________ as a result of its convenience and qualities of hygiene.
But because of its light weight and ability to float, _________ with its increasing use in international
garbage exports, plastic has become an ecological bane.
“One man’s plastic food wrapper is another man’s problem,” Ms. Sutherland said.
The proposals from the European Union and from Britain landed on the heels of a Chinese
____________ on all foreign plastic waste imports, which began in January.
Rwanda has also begun a campaign that threatened public shaming and even prison time to
_____________ the plastics problem, making it illegal to import, produce, use or sell plastic bags and
plastic packaging except within specific industries like hospitals and pharmaceuticals.
The nation is one of more than 40 around the world that have banned, ______________ or taxed the use
of plastic bags, including France and Italy.
In a study published last year, scientists estimated that 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic has been
produced _______________ since the 1950s, when plastic began being mass-produced. Of that, roughly
6.3 billion metric tons has been thrown away, 79 percent of it in landfills or in other parts of the
environment.
Only 9 percent of the ______________ plastic has been recycled, according to the study, whose lead
author is Roland Geyer of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the Universit y of
California, Santa Barbara.
In the Netherlands, free plastic bags were banned two years ago, after a European Union direct ive was
_____________ in 2015 to ____________ them out. At the time, the country of about 17 million used
around three billion bags each year, most of which ended up in the trash.
Ekoplaza has promised to _____________ the plastic-free idea to all of its 74 stores by the end of the
year.
Ms. Sutherland said, “There is absolutely no logic in wrapping something as fleeting as food in something
as indestructible as plastic.”
A. Open Cloze exercise: Fill in the gaps with the appropriate words or prepositions.
2. B. Define the concepts in bold
In somebody's cross hairs:
(Hard/close/hot) on the heels of:
A bane:
A landfill:
Fleeting:
C. Speaking:
1. What do you think of this initiative?
2. Do you think it will work? (why / why not?)
3. Do you believe Erik Does when he says " It’s not just a marketing trick"? (why / why not?)
4. Are you concerned about the accumulation of plastic in our oceans?
5. What else could be done to tackle the problem?
if every tourism operation protected some small
area of their backyard
☐
armored and his team of ocean Rangers have
received reports of turtle poaching
☐
* the success of the marine protected area
depends on the Rangers' stopping illegal
fishermen in their tracks
Replace "the Rangers'" by a pronoun:
____________
The Rangers are really the unsung heroes of this
marine protected area
☐
it's hard to describe the scene of carnage that we
met there were the remnants of a shark finning
camp
☐
we really had to make a stand and protect this
area and stop those sharks getting slaughtered
they petitioned the local village leaders to lease
them the land...
☐
the turtles are at their most vulnerable when
nesting on the beach
☐
only one in 1,000 sea turtle hatchlings will survive
to adulthood
☐
**it's vital that every single egg is protected Make this sentence more accurate/formal:
It's not long until Armoud spots some telltale
(or tell-tale) signs of poaching
☐
Scenes like that are all too common
☐
There are incredible benefits to be reaped from
protecting natural resources
☐
Andrew and Merritt hope that the story of their
success may encourage others as they fine-tune
their business model over the next few years
☐
they want to pitch to hotel chains and tourism
operators to start similar ventures
☐
our dream scenario is that Missile becomes the
gold standard for private enterprise doing
conservation
☐
Their way of life has been safeguarded for
☐
3. generations to come
Instructions:
1) During the video: tick the sentences as you hear them.
2) Once we've viewed the video: in pairs, work out the meaning of the words in bold from the context
(excepted otherwise indicated *, **) and rephrase the sentence.
3) Speaking: answer the following questions:
In your opinion, what guaranteed the success of Andrew and Marit's operation?
In what sense is it a win-win situation?
in pairs / groups of 3, think of an eco-tourism project you might like to carry out in Spain and the effects
it would have on the local community and the environment. Switch groups and explain your project.
Site Environmental goal Impact on the local community
Based on the following video by The Economist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BudHTnb9G5s
