6 Minute English / Plastic waste eaten by enzymes

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Neil.

And I m Beth.

Plastic pollution is a problem we ve discussed before on 6 Minute English. It s an environmental issue which, like the growing amount of plastic waste, isn t going away. And now microparticles of plastic have even been found can you guess where, Beth?

Hmm, let me guess in our food? inside dead animals? at the North Pole?

At the top of Mount Everest! Although the other places you mentioned are true as well. Plastic is a tough problem to fix, but fortunately scientists may now have found a solution.

In this programme, we ll be hearing about chemical recycling, a groundbreaking way of making old plastic new again. And, as usual, we ll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

But first I have a question for you, Beth. Visit the country or seaside and you ll soon see evidence of plastic waste. According to the UN, around 400 million tonnes of new plastic is produced every year, much of it going to waste. It s hard to imagine what 400 million tonnes looks like, so which of the following, if you placed on a set of scales, would weigh about the same? Is it:

a) all the people on Earth?

b) all the cars on Earth? or,