How to Help:

• Meat Free Mondays  are an easy and effective way to cut down on meat. Make one or even two of your days meat-free.

• Eat organic!  Organic foods have had no insecticides and pesticides added to them which makes them more natural and healthy.  Eating organic food reduces how many chemicals are made and spread across the countryside.

• Washing.  Always wash your hands before eating to prevent the spread of invisible bacteria and chemicals.  It’s also good to wash fruit and vegetables before eating or cooking.

the demand for food – потреба їжі

amounts - багато

fuel [ ΄fjuәl] - пальне

livestock - худоба

to fart – псувати повітря

to cut down on meat – вирізувати на м'ясо

to spread - розповсюджуватися

invisible - невидимий

4. Water. Turn on the tap and there it is.  Getting water is so easy that you’d be mistaken for thinking that there was an endless supply.  But the world has a water shortage.  70% of the world is covered in water - we should call our planet ‘ocean’ not ‘earth’!  But most of this water is salt water, leaving only a small percentage of fresh drinking water.  Countries including Spain, Italy, Peru, China and South Africa actually import water from exporting countries such as the US, Australia and Argentina.  1.1 billion people on earth have no access to clean drinking water.  This global shortage is predicted to get worse as global temperatures rise.

We can reduce our water use. 

How to help:

• Don’t take shower too long. Cut down your shower time by 1 or 2 minutes.

• Don’t waste water when cleaning the teeth.

• Repair the taps miming.

to turn on the tap – відкривати кран

an endless supply – безкінечні запаси

a water shortage – скорочення води

to waste water – марнувати воду

to repair the taps miming – ремонтувати крани

5. Rubbish. Let’s start with a fact.  Every year the UK produces 280 million tonnes of waste - that’s about the same as 700,000 fully loaded airliners.  We throw away unwanted food, glass bottles, plastic bottles, cans, wrappers, paper and cardboard.  Can you think of anything else?

Many of these things are made up of natural resources such as trees, coal, oil and aluminium and one day some of these resources will be used up completely.

Over the last ten years the whole of the UK has come together to do more about this.  40% of all household waste is now recycled compared to just 11% in 2000.  Do you recycle at home and at college?  Why recycle?  Recycling glass, paper, cardboard and plastic should save the energy it would take to make new paper, glass bottles and plastic containers.

Recycling in the UK saves more than 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – equivalent to taking 5 million cars off the road.  Recycling isn’t a new thing either.  So, is all our rubbish really rubbish?

How to help:

Thinking more about what we waste helps to protect the environment by saving energy, reducing pollution, cutting costs and preserving our natural resources.

• Save trees!  Save trees by recycling your own paper.  Paper with a clean side can be made into notebooks.  They are great for notes.  If you are buying paper, buy recycled paper.

• Would you like a bag?  If you can carry your shopping home without a bag then carry it home.  If you can’t why not take a bag you already have with you.  Re-using bags is the cool way to shop!

• Packaging.  Packaging is a big problem for the environment because once the product is open you don’t need it and it’s thrown out or, if it’s lucky, recycled.  So avoid buying products that have a lot of paper and plastic around them.

fully loaded airliners – повністю завантажені авіалайнери

to throw away - викидати

wrappers - обгортки

cardboard - картон

to preserve natural resources – зберігати природні ресурси

notebooks - записники

to avoid - уникати

6. Rainforests (Deforestation). Rainforests are valuable habitats.  About half of all the species of animals and plants in the world live in rainforests and thousands of rainforest plants contain substances that can be used in medicines.  The tribal people of the forests have great knowledge of them.  Rainforests are also important because the huge number of plants and trees there provide us with oxygen through a process called photosynthesis and help to regulate the world's climate and atmosphere. This is why they are often referred to as the ‘lungs’ of the earth.

Despite their value, an area of rainforest the size of Britain is destroyed every year. This is called deforestation. Rainforests cover only 6% of the world as we cut down the trees for materials such as paper and wood and use the land for farming and crops.  

Sometimes they're burnt down to make space to grow soya which is an animal feed and to grow palm oil.  Palm oil is a bio-fuel used as an alternative to petrol and diesel, as well as being in 33% of products in your local supermarket!  Everyone can do their bit to help reduce the need for deforestation, just follow our tips below.