module 4 LISTENING RE-USEABLE PACKAGING AND BIO-PLASTICS Listen to the text carefully and fill in the blanks, using some of the following words. COMMUNICATION awful before challenge closely labelling never past poisoning shelf slightly soil stuff suitable boycott wasteful There s no doubt that reduce and re-use come (1) .... .. recycle in the list of ecofriendly actions. The most eco-friendly form of packaging is that which (2) ......... .. exists in the first place, even if we know that s impossible. Over the (3) .... .. decade, companies have begun to realise that (4) .... .. packaging is costly and that eco-aware consumers have become more and more numerous, and have started to (5) .... .. their brand. Some of them are therefore turning to alternative packaging materials that just a few years ago might have seemed a (6) .... .. The result is a huge reduction in waste, marketing influence, and the strengthening of low-impact industries. The most (7) ........ .. thing about petroleum-based plastic products and packaging is that they can take thousands of years to degrade in a landfill, allowing toxic chemicals to penetrate into the (8) .... ..and water table1. Biodegradable plastics are designed to break down much faster and, assuming they are made from friendlier ingredients, do so without (9) .......... .. the planet. Biodegradable plastics are degraded by micro-organisms through a different process from other forms of degradation, such as photo-degradation, from exposure to sunlight and oxo-degradation2, from exposure to high temperature and humidity. Bio-plastic, often confused with biodegradable plastic, is (10) ......... .. different. Bio-based plastics are made wholly from renewable resources, such as cellulose, vegetable oils, sugar or starch. Wood, corn, potato, wheat, tapioca and rice are some of the sources of resin for biobased plastics. Bio-based plastics are not automatically bio-degradable, but can be designed to be so. This lower-impact material has been embraced by several beverage brands. 1 Water table: the level below the surface of the ground at which you start to find water. 2 Oxo-biodegradation process uses two methods to start the biodegradation. These methods are Photodegradation (UV) and Oxidation. The UV degradation uses UV light to degrade the end product. The oxidation process uses time, and heat to break down the plastic. Both methods reduce the molecular weight of the plastic and allow it to biodegrade. 152