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BBC Learning English Weekender Recycling supermarket packaging
Yvonne: Hello, you’re listening to Weekender from bbclearningenglish.com! Can you guess what we’re talking about in today’s programme?Ben Bradshaw, Environment Minister There was no instruction that you shouldn’t put in plastic bags, so we’d been happily putting plastic bags in our recycling bag for some time…

Yvonne:

Yes,we’re talking about packaging and recycling. Have you ever arrived home with what seems like a lot of shopping but then, when you take everything out of the plastic bags and unwrap all your goodiesfrom the packaging, you realise that you really didn’t buy that much? Well, as we throw all that packaging away, it’s well worth us remembering that we’re creating more problems for the environment.In a recent newspaper article, Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw and his family were caught out because they weren’t dealing with all their plastic bags in the correct way. So even the man who’s incharge of the Environment here can get things wrong! Here he is again, but this time, try to catch the reason why he made such a mistake?

Ben Bradshaw, Environment Minister There was no instructionthat you shouldn’t put in plastic bags, so we’d been happily putting plastic bags in our recycling bag for some time.

Yvonne:

So it’s really important that the authorities give clear instructionsabout what people should do about all their recyclable items. The Bradshaw family was

Weekender bbclearningenglish.com

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‘happily’ putting their plasticbags in the wrong bag. In this case, ‘happily’ means that they were unaware that they were making a mistake, they didn’t know and they were quite satisfied that they were doing the right thing the entiretime. Luckily, there are some supermarkets that take back our spare plastic bags for re-use by other customers or for recycling - so that’s what the minister did.

Quite often, we get more than...