Is the recycling system broken?

Question 1

scrap

Answer 1

unwanted waste material; rubbish.

I’d forgotten to take the recycling bins out before the rubbish collection this morning. I seem to have more and more plastic packaging each week!
China used to accept 55% of the world’s plastic and paper scrap. That included waste sent over from Britain. But in 2018 it stopped taking any more.
Other countries like Indonesia and Vietnam took over China’s waste processing role. But they too are now sending much of the scrap back, arguing it is contaminated and it is harming their own environments.

Question 2

public at large

Answer 2

most people (in the world), rather than just some of them.

There’s been a real raise in consciousness which is fantastic and I’m really glad that now it seems the public at large is really interested in this issue and appalled and wants to do something about it, wants to change it.

Question 3

raise consciousness

Answer 3

develop awareness of an unfair situation, with the aim of making people want to help in changing it.

There’s been a real raise in consciousness which is fantastic and I’m really glad that now it seems the public at large is really interested in this issue and appalled and wants to do something about it, wants to change it.

Question 4

virgin plastic

Answer 4

original, unused plastic containers before anything else is done to it– made directly from crude oil or natural gas.

But at the same time I don’t see yet any real action that would make things better because while all of this is happening the virgin plastic industry is actually increasing its production capacity.
The main problem comes from virgin plastic

Question 5

slogan

Answer 5

short, easily remembered phrase, often used to advertise/promote an idea or product.

Professor Sun mentions ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ as a useful slogan. in this case that we should all do what we can to protect the environment. But while protecting the planet is a common goal, recycling in itself may not be so important. It’s better to reduce and reuse than recycle, so these two objectives should be emphasised - highlighted as being especially important.

Question 6

emphasised

Answer 6

highlighted as being especially important; drawn attention to.

We have the slogan of ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ and the priority should be exactly that – reduce and reuse is better than recycling. And the cost of recycling is often not emphasised enough. People perceive recycling to be great but there’s actually significant labour and material costs associated with recycling.

Recycling is unable to keep pace with virgin plastic production, so instead reducing and reusing plastic should be emphasised