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Read the article and then do an activity, in which you will have to choose the headings for each paragraph, that have been replaced by in the text below. Finally, do some writing yourself.
1.
My most important piece of equipment as an English teacher is my “Dictaphone” – a small cassette player the size of a Walkman but with a microphone built in for recording, and a speaker so that you can play the sound back to several people. I use it every day. A few years ago, I bought some rechargeable batteries for it. At the time I thought this was a great step forward. For one thing, although they were a lot more expensive than ordinary batteries, these could be recharged hundreds of times, so I expected to save a lot of money. Also, I thought that this was a good thing to do morally.
2.
The “green” movement puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of individual consumer choices to change our society and make it more environmentally friendly. I thought by making this choice I might be helping towards that important goal. It must be true that if everyone bought rechargeable batteries it would have a big effect. At the moment in the world we throw away 15 billion ordinary batteries a year. Some of the new types of rechargeable battery can be re-charged 1,000 times which should mean 1,000 times less rubbish going into the ground.
3.
A developed economy seems to depend on disposable products, or, at least, ones that quickly become old-fashioned and obsolete, to keep industries going. The life of a personal computer may be about 3 years on average. People apparently change their mobile phones about twice as fast…every 16 months! You might think that this explains why a lot of shops are still displaying shelves full of old-fashioned use-once-and-throw-away batteries, and rechargeable ones are harder to find. Certainly, from a statistical point of view, if we spent less money on batteries, kept using other things a bit longer – our economies would appear smaller. Theoretically, you would expect unemployment to increase or wages to go down. In reality though, if we improve the environment we should feel richer.
4.
There comes a moment when even a rechargeable battery has to be thrown away. My batteries were the Nickel-cadmium sort and there was a symbol on them clearly saying you have to recycle them. You cannot just throw them in the rubbish bin. Cadmium is a poisonous metal which accumulates in living things. If you smoke cigarettes then cadmium is one of the many dangerous substances you take in with the smoke.
If the batteries are recycled then all of the cadmium can be recovered and used again for making more batteries.
5.
I went back to the shop where I bought them and tried to give the batteries back to the lady at the photography department counter. (That’s where they sell new batteries). She said she had no idea what I should do with the batteries. I told her to ask her boss and went on to another shop where I know the owner is a sensible and friendly man. He told me he would take the batteries – just so that I would not have to worry about them, and then he would throw them directly into the rubbish bin.
I decided to just leave the batteries at home until I can find out where there is a proper recycling facility.
What do you think of this article? Send us your opinions.
United Nations World Environment Day
Wikipedia: recycling
Glossary of recycling
10 things you can do to help the planet
Waste Watch: recycle zone
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