6 Portfolio: Design a simple quiz to find out how good someone is at reducing, recycling and reusing things. Use ideas from the text as well as your own ideas. Give your quiz to your partner to complete. Report your findings to the class. 1 You are packing your lunch for school. What do you pack? a A sandwich and a banana in a reusable container. b A sandwich in a plastic bag & a packet of crisps. ELIMINATE WASTE & PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT BI-MONTHLY NEWSLETTER January - February Simply speaking, waste is anything thrown away or released into the environment. Jnforh Unfortunately, a lot of waste can end up harming the environment. You can help protect the environment by learning about and practising the 3 Rs: REDUCE, RECYCLE and REUSE! We've come up with some practical ways of doing this... CHOOSE TO REUSE It's not waste until you waste it! Think carefully about how you can reuse something before you throw it away. Make a compost heap in the garden with fruit and vegetable material - it will decompose and make good fertiliser for your plants. Also, if things break, try to repair them before you replace them. Remember that one man's rubbish is another man's treasure! If you buy a replacement for something you already have, give the old item to someone who can use it. Have your jeans got holes in the knees? Make new shorts out of them or give them to someone who needs them. Don't throw away empty jars and bottles; rinse them out and use them to store other things. TURN IT DOWN OR SWITCH IT OFF Always switch off the lights when you leave an empty room, and use light bulbs that save energy. You can also switch off the cooker a few minutes earlier - there will still be enough heat to finish cooking the food. Why not take showers in cooler water and for shorter lengths of time? Finally, turn down the heating and put on warmer clothes if you're cold. BE A LEAN, GREEN SHOPPING MACHINE Only buy what you really need and use all of it. Thinking about buying something new? Try the 30-day rule - only buy it if you still want it 30 days after you first saw it. At the supermarket, avoid buying things you do not need by writing a shopping list before you go and making sure you keep to it. Of course, you should also take your own bags to put the shopping in. PUT PACKAGING ON A DIET First things first; buy things with simple packaging that can easily be recycled. Better still, choose products with no packaging at all! Secondly, if you are preparing a packed lunch to eat at school, take a sandwich in a reusable lunchbox, juice in a reusable bottle and a banana, rather than a sandwich in a plastic bag, or a carton of juice and biscuits which are each wrapped in silver paper and even more plastic. And finally...think BIG! One large box of cereal, for example, uses less packaging than several smaller ones and is usually a lot cheaper too! SAVE ON PAPER Try to cut down on the amount of paper you use. Use a computer and proofread your writing on the screen before you print it out. Use both sides of the paper and then recycle it. Remember that telephone calls and email messages don't create paper waste. GET OTHERS INVOLVED Last but not least, encourage your friends to cut down on waste too! Swap magazines, books and clothes, send them a copy of this newsletter (on recycled paper, of course!) or start a 'Use Less Stuff!' campaign at your school! Study skills Revising Try to recall what you have read: headings, main ideas, words, grammar structures, etc. Summarise what you have learnt in your own words. This helps you remember what you have read.