What is the environment?
The enviroment is the world, including plants and animals, that surrounds us. Humans can have an effect on their environment by how they live and what they do.
Watch: Discover more about the environment
Learn about recycling and the environment in the UK.
All that plastic and packaging you get with groceries and deliveries. All the cardboard from those takeaway pizzas. All those metal tins and cans. We create a lot of waste. But luckily we have ways of reusing those materials.
Hi, I’m Jude. Every time you throw something away, it ends up somewhere. That can have a bad impact on the environment. Lots of waste goes to landfill, where it just sits being… well, rubbish.
But at places like this recycling centre behind me, some waste can be turned back into raw materials and reused. That’s called recycling. Let’s investigate…
Either people paid by the government, or the public themselves, can bring waste here and it’s sorted in different areas, depending on what type of material it is.
Here they can recycle: garden waste, wood, bricks, carpets, cardboard, paper, various electrical items, types of metal like food tins and aluminium, and of course, plastic.
All that waste is then transferred inside, where it’s carefully sorted. It’s then taken to a recycling facility and put into recycling machines. They can turn the waste back into a material we can use.
Those are all materials that are recyclable, but many people feel not enough material is made to be re-used. So much plastic, like the bags at supermarkets, can only be used once and they take a thousand years to eventually break down into nothing. Until then they just sit around and harm the environment.
When people say ‘environment’, it describes not only the area just around us, but the world as a whole. It’s dangerous for animals if they swallow or get stuck in plastic, and plastic releases pollution into the water as it dissolves, and into the air if it’s burnt.
I’m back home now from the recycling centre. We have different bins at home to help sort between recyclable and non-recyclable materials. Your local council gives information to explain what those different materials are.
But with humans creating so much harmful waste, the public can’t tackle this crisis alone: we need our leaders to make laws so companies use recyclable material only.
The gas, oil and coal industries create plastic and all sorts of other things we need, like energy. But they have a negative impact on the environment.
Over time, the waste they create and chemicals they release heat up the planet, making our weather more unpredictable and more dangerous.
What can you do to reduce your impact on the environment?
Pollution
When fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal are burned, a gas called carbon dioxide is released.
The levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are already very high. Increasing carbon dioxide levels will be damaging and will make the Earth heat up.
Carbon dioxide traps heat from the sun and causes the temperature of the Earth to rise - this is called Heat from the Earth's surface is trapped by gases in the atmosphere, which stops the heat escaping into space and warms the Earth.
Climate change
Climate change affects the Earth in many ways. This includes:
• Extreme weather such as high winds, hurricanes and flooding become more frequent.
• The climate can become too hot and dry or too wet, so crops don’t grow as well.
• Animals are at risk of losing their The natural home of a plant or an animal..
• Sea levels rise because of melting glaciers and melting sea ice.
What is the UK doing to reduce carbon emissions?
The UK government has set a target to cut the amount of carbon emissions by 78% by 2035.
Here are the some of the ways they are planning to do this:
• by not burning as many fossil fuels.
• using more Sources of energy that can be replaced such as solar energy, water power, wind power. to make electricity such as wind farms.
• reducing the sale of petrol and diesel cars and using electric cars or hybrid cars instead, so there are fewer harmful gases.
• being less wasteful by making buildings more energy efficient.
• using less plastic.
• planting more trees as they take in carbon dioxide and protect the environment.
• recycling and using recycled materials to make products.
What is recycling?
Waste means materials or things that are thrown away, because they are broken or because people don’t want them anymore.
There are different kinds of waste:
• Food waste
• Clothing waste
• Electronic goods such as old TVs, mobile phones, laptops, fridges
• Paper waste
• Packaging waste
Recycling is another way of reducing waste. So, rather than throwing something away, it can be re-used or parts of it can be re-used to have a new purpose.
Things that can be recycled include:
- Glass
- Plastic
- Paper
- Metal
If a product has a recycling symbol on, it means it can be recycled.
Activities
True or false: Environment
Guess the bin: Environment
Game - Climate Detectives
THE REGENERATORS
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