UNIT 5 – THE ENVIRONMENT

SESSION 1
Teacher: Anh Thu (Bella)
 5a Recycling
Vocabulary recycling
1 What kind of rubbish do you throw away or recycle every week? What
percentage of each type (a–e) is in your rubbish?

a electronics d metal d metal

b glass e plastic e plastic
c paper and cardboard

2 Match these objects to the type of rubbish (a–e) in Exercise 1. Some items
match two categories.
1 computer 6 tin can
2 bottle 7 TV
3 jar 8 cereal box
4 aluminium foil 9 magazine
5 milk carton 10 bag

5a-p. 58
Reading
3 Look at the photos with the article. What do you think e-rubbish is? Why is
the boy holding part of an old computer?

4 Read the article and check your ideas from

Exercise 3.

5a-p. 58
 Track 36
Do you ever throw away any electronic rubbish (or e-rubbish)? Perhaps you have
some old technology that doesn’t work, like an out-of-date phone, or a slow
computer. But when you throw away these objects, do you know where they go?
The journalist Peter Essick has followed this e-rubbish to different countries
around the world.
Essick found a lot of e-rubbish in Ghana, with thousands of old computers in the
local markets. Here, the sellers resell a few computers to people for their homes and
offices, but you can’t sell many computers in the market because a lot of them don’t
work. So they melt some parts of the computers to recycle the metal. These parts
don’t have much metal, but sometimes there is a little gold inside.
Unfortunately, recycling the metal can be dangerous for the workers because it
produces a lot of chemicals which are bad for workers’ health. As a result, Peter
Essick thinks we shouldn’t send any e-rubbish to other countries. It’s bad for the
environment and it’s bad for people’s health. He believes we need to produce more
environmentally-friendly electronics in the future; in other words, electronic
products which you can recycle safely and in the country where they were made.

5a-p. 58
5 Read the article again and answer these questions.

1 Where did Peter Essick follow the e-rubbish to?

2 What did he find in the markets of Ghana?
3 Why do people melt parts of the broken computers?
4 Why is recycling the metal dangerous?
5 What is it bad for?
6 What types of electronic products are environmentally friendly?

5a-p. 58
Grammar quantifiers
6 Which of these nouns are countable? Which are uncountable? Write C or U.

5a-p. 59
7 Look at the sentences in the grammar box. Then complete these sentences
with the correct quantifiers.

1 We use ____________ and ____________ in affirmative sentences with

countable or uncountable nouns.
2 We use ____________ in questions with countable or uncountable
nouns.
3 We talk about small quantities with ____________ in affirmative
sentences with countable nouns.
4 We talk about small quantities with ____________ in affirmative
sentences with uncountable nouns.
5 We use any and ____________ in negative sentences with countable
nouns.
6 We use ____________ and ____________ in negative sentences with
uncountable nouns.

5a-p. 59
8 Choose the correct quantifier. In one sentence both quantifiers are correct.

1 How much / many rubbish do you recycle?

2 I recycle a few / a little things, like glass and plastic bottles.
3 I don’t recycle many / much glass.
4 I recycle a few / a little paper each week.
5 Do you have much / any recycling bins?
6 There are some / any old TVs for sale at the market.
7 A lot of people on my street don’t recycle many / much plastic.
8 You shouldn’t throw away many / any paper! Always recycle it.
9 Nowadays, a lot of / some cities and towns have special places to take
recycling.

5a-p. 59
Speaking
9 Read these sentences about recycling. If necessary, change the words in bold
so the sentences are true for you.
1 I throw away a lot of paper every week.
2 In my area, a few places have recycling bins.
3 My school / place of work doesn’t have any recycling bins for paper.
4 Some people in my country think recycling is important.

5a-p. 59
10 Work in pairs. Ask and answer questions about your sentences in Exercise 9.
Start your questions like this:

1 How much paper …?

2 Do any places …?
3 Does your school / place of work …?
4 How many people …?
A: How much paper do you throw away?
B: I don’t throw away any paper. We recycle it in the special green bins.

5a-p. 59
 5b Managing the environment
Vocabulary results and figures
1 Discuss the questions.
1 How often do you read news about the environment? Is it always bad
news?
2 Do you have any good news about the environment in your country?

2 Read a newspaper report about Portugal. Is it good news or bad news?

Portugal powered the whole country using only solar, wind and
hydroelectric energy for about a hundred hours last week. Exactly a year
ago, the country produced under a quarter of its electricity from wind
power and nearly half of its total energy came from renewable energy. So
it’s a huge achievement for the country to live off renewable energy for over
four days.

5b-p. 60
3 Look at the phrases in bold in the newspaper report. Find the phrases that
have a similar meaning to the exact information a–e.
a 48%
b 107
c from May 7 to May 11
d 22%
e 12 months
4 Work in pairs. Answer these questions about your life using over, under,
nearly and about.
1 How much of your day do you spend looking at a screen (e.g. computer,
TV)?
I spend about a third of my day looking at a screen.
2 How many hours a week do you spend shopping?
3 How many people live in your town or city?
4 How much money a month do you spend on buying clothes?
5 How many months a year do you spend at school or at work?

5b-p. 60
Listening
5 Listen to a news report about two environmental projects and answer the
questions. Track 37

1 What four deserts does the report mention?

2 Where are the two environmental projects?
3 What type of wall are the countries building?

5b-p. 60
6 Listen again and answer the questions. Track 37

1 What percentage of the Earth’s land is desert?

2 When did the Chinese start planting the great green wall?
3 Why did they plant it?
4 How many trees are in the wall now?
5 How long will it be by 2050?
6 How many countries are working together on the wall in Africa?
7 What will the new forest stop the desert doing?
8 How big will the forest across the Sahara be?

5b-p. 60
Grammar articles
7 Look at the grammar box.
Read the sentences and
look at the words in bold.
Complete these rules
with a/an, the, or no
article.
a We normally use _________________ when we talk about something
which isn’t specific or it’s the first time we mention something. When we
talk about something specific or talk about it again, we use
_________________.
b We also use _________________ when something is unique (there is
only one), with superlatives or with the names of some places (e.g.
oceans, deserts, mountain ranges).
c We use _________________ when we talk about people or things in
general, and with the names of most places (e.g. continents, countries,
cities, lakes).

5b-p. 61
8 Read about two more ways to manage the environment. Choose the correct
option. Choose – if no article is needed.

Ice towers
In the spring and summer there is often a water shortage in 1 the / –
Himalayan mountains. So during the winter, 2 a / – people make ice towers.
They put one end of 3 a / – long pipe into a river high in the mountains and
then they take the other end of 4 a / the pipe down to a village. The water
comes out of the pipe and freezes in a fountain to make 5 – / an ice tower in
the village. Then it melts in the spring so 6 a / – farmers can
use it on their land.

Fog collectors
7 The / – Atacama desert in 8 the / – Chile is one of the driest parts of 9 a /
the world. There is very little rain, but there is fog, and fog contains 10 – /
the water. To get this water, some scientists are trying to collect the water in
11 the / a big net. 12 The / A net catches drops of water, and it can collect
between five and thirty litres of water per day.

5b-p. 61
9 Pronunciation /ðə/ or /ðiː/
a Listen to the difference in the pronunciation of the before a consonant
sound and a vowel sound. Track 38
/ðə/ /ðiː/
the wall the Earth

b Listen and circle /ðə/ or /ðiː/. Then listen again and repeat. Track 39

1 the river /ðə/ /ðiː/

2 the ice /ðə/ /ðiː/
3 the world /ðə/ /ðiː/
4 the desert /ðə/ /ðiː/
5 the oldest /ðə/ /ðiː/
6 the largest /ðə/ /ðiː/
7 the Atacama desert /ðə/ /ðiː/

5b-p. 61
10 Look at the questions from a general knowledge quiz. Complete the questions
with a/an or the where necessary. Then try to answer the questions.
Around the world quiz
1 There is ________ river between ________ Brazil, Colombia, Peru and
Ecuador. What is its name?
2 ________ White House is in ________ USA. Who lives there?
3 There’s ________ natural satellite which goes round ________ Earth
every day. What is it?
4 In 1997, Larry Page and Sergey set up ________ global search engine.
What is its name?
5 ________ Arctic Ocean is ________ smallest ocean in the world. Which is
________ largest?

11 Check the quiz answers on page 155. See page 155 of the Student’s
Book.

5b-p. 61
Writing and speaking
12 You are going to write five more quiz questions. Work in two pairs in a group
of four.
Pair A: Turn to page 153 and follow the instructions.
Pair B: Turn to page 154 and follow the instructions.

13 Work in your group. Ask and answer your five questions. Find out which pair
has the best knowledge of the world.

5b-p. 61
 5c A boat made of bottles
Reading
1 Look at these words from the article on page 63. What do you think the
article is about?

2 Read the article and check your ideas from Exercise 1.

5c-p. 62
 Track 40

A boat with a difference

The Plastiki looks similar to many other boats in Sydney harbour. It’s eighteen
metres long, six metres wide and it weighs about twelve thousand
kilogrammes. It carries a crew of six people and has an average speed of five
knots. However, once you get near to the Plastiki you realize there’s a big
difference. It’s made of twelve thousand five hundred re-used plastic bottles.
How did the Plastiki begin?
David de Rothschild is an environmentalist who has crossed Antarctica and
explored the Ecuadorian Amazon. One day he was reading some information
about all the plastic in the seas and oceans. He couldn’t believe what he was
reading. For example, humans throw away four out of every five plastic bottles
they use, and plastic rubbish causes about eighty per cent of the pollution in
the sea. In addition, scientists think that around one million seabirds die every
year from plastic pollution. De Rothschild decided he wanted to help the fight
against pollution in the sea. To help more people understand the problem, he
started building a boat made of plastic bottles.

5c-p. 63
Track 40

Designing the Plastiki

As well as building the boat with recycled plastic, it was important for him to
make the boat environmentally friendly and user-friendly. The boat uses
renewable energy such as wind power and solar energy. The crew can make
meals with vegetables from the small garden at the back of the boat.
They can take a break from work and get some exercise by using the special
exercise bicycle. The energy from the bike provides power for the boat’s
computers. And if anyone needs to take a shower, the boat’s shower uses
saltwater from the sea.
The journey
De Rothschild sailed the Plastiki across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to
Sydney. That’s fifteen thousand three hundred and seventy-two kilometres. On
the way, de Rothschild took the special boat through the ‘Great Garbage Patch’.
It is a huge area in the Pacific with 3.5 billion kilogrammes of rubbish. You can
see every kind of human rubbish here: shoes, toys, bags, toothbrushes, but the
worst problem is the plastic. It kills birds and sea life.

5c-p. 63
Track 40

How well did the Plastiki survive the journey?

The journey wasn’t always easy and de Rothschild and his crew had to take care
during storms. There were giant ocean waves and winds of over one hundred
kilometres per hour. The whole journey took one hundred and twenty nine
days. Originally, de Rothschild thought the boat could only travel once, but it
lasted so well that he is planning to sail it again one day.

5c-p. 63
3 Complete the fact file with numbers about the Plastiki.

5c-p. 62
Critical thinking close reading
4 Read the sentences (1–8). Choose the correct option (A–C) for each
sentence.
A = The sentence is true. The information is in the text.
B = The sentence is false. The information is in the text.
C = We don’t know if it’s true or false. The information isn’t in the text.

1 The Plastiki is made of the same material as other boats.

2 Nowadays, humans recycle most of their plastic bottles.
3 Plastic in the sea is killing animals.
4 The boat doesn’t use renewable energy.
5 The crew only ate vegetables for the whole journey.
6 The size of the ‘Great Garbage Patch’ is growing.
7 The journey took longer than de Rothchild planned.
8 De Rothschild wants to sail the Plastiki again one day.

5c-p. 62
Word focus take
5 Find five expressions in the article with the word take. Match the expressions
with the uses (1–4).

5c-p. 62
6 Complete the sentences with the correct form of take and these words.

1 Most people __________________ from San Francisco to Sydney so they

don’t know about the pollution in the ocean.
2 The journey across the Great Garbage Patch __________________.
3 The work was tiring and the crew sometimes needed to
__________________ and relax.
4 The Pacific Ocean can be dangerous, so everyone on the ship had to
__________________.
5 For this kind of project, it’s important to __________________ to plan
things carefully.

5c-p. 62
Speaking
7 Work in groups and discuss these questions.
1 Do you think environmental projects like the Plastiki make a difference to
people’s attitudes to rubbish? Will de Rothschild’s journey make people
change their behaviour? Why? / Why not?
2 In your country, does anyone (e.g. the government, the police, charities)
try to change people’s behaviour in these areas?
• recycling more rubbish
• stopping smoking cigarettes
• driving over the speed limit
• eating too much food
• anything else?
The government tries to stop people smoking cigarettes.
3 How do they try to do this? What are some good ways to change people’s
attitudes and behaviour? (e.g. TV advertising, making people pay a fine)

5c-p. 62