Patagonia introduced recycled fleece into its range in 1993.

Recycled fleece was introduced in 1993.

1. Consumers will buy more and more ‘environmentally-friendly’ products.

2. Consumers should take plastic bottles to the local recycling centre.

3. Patagonia can make 150 synchilla garments from 3,700 bottles.

4. The company has recently added a new item to the product range.

5. Many companies are developing green-marketing strategies.

Language Focus

The following extract describes how Patagonia uses recycled plastic bottles to make material for jackets. Put the verbs in brackets in the passive form to complete each stage of the process.

Bottles (1)……. (bring) to the local recycling centre. The plastic (2)_________(convert) into small pieces and (3)____________(chop) into flakes. The flakes (4) ___(melt)and shaped into fine fibers. The recycled fibers (5)_ (ship) to the mill. They (6)_ (make) into clothes known as ‘PCR synchillo clothing’.

Language Focus

Complete the following passage with the appropriate passive forms of the verbs in brackets.

A new campaign (1) ................................(launch) earlier this year by the UK government which aims to reduce the amount of domestic waste. Households(2) ................................. (encourage) to recycle certain waste products and to sort and prepare others for collection at specific sites. From there they (3 )................................(take) to special waste treatment plants where special machinery will process them for reuse as recycled material. In Britain today, when the contents of the average household dustbin(4 ).................................(analyse), we find that, in terms of weight, 35% of the total (5) .......................... (compose) of paper and cardboard, 22% of kitchen waste, 12% of plastics with glass, dust and ashes each representing a further 10%. There are in fact only a few items of domestic waste that cannot (6) ..........................(recycle). One common example is disposable nappies which, as their name suggests, ( 7 )..................................(design) to be thrown away after use. However, a lot of progress could ( 8 )................................(make) to reduce the amount of kitchen waste most of which can (9) ................ (transform) into a useful garden fertiliser. Indeed, if more people chose to do this then the weight of the average dustbin (10) ............................... (reduce) quite significantly. In terms of glass products, the situation is more encouraging as nearly 20% of all the glass that (11) ................................. (use) every year in the country (1 2 )................... (take) back for recycling. Nonetheless, it is clear that the mountains of domestic waste will only decrease if efforts (13) .................................. (make) both by individual households and local government authorities. Special equipment such as collection trucks must (14) ................................ (purchase) and people must (1 5 )..........................(make) aware of how they can contribute to improving the situation. This (16 ) ..................................(achieve) with increasing success in a number of regions in Europe during the last few years, a trend that (17 ) ..................(expect) to continue in the future.

Vocabulary Practice

The sentences below are extracts from the introduction to an environmental report ‘How Green is my Patio’ written by Martin Toogood, the Managing Director of B&Q, a British Do-It-Yourself retailer.

Replace the words in brackets with an appropriate word from the box.

Policy customers impact

Stores programme issues

Review factory estimate

Goal consumption

A. Whilst our day-to-day running of the business does have an environmental (1)....................... (the effect of one thing on another), the (2)..................... (difficult questions or problems) with our products were, and still are, far greater.

B. Rather than just produce a (3) ... ................(an official course of action) quickly and stick a few green labels on our products, we started a fundamental (4) ........................(examination/analysis) of the product range and the day-to-day running of the business.

C. Basic contradictions such as our (5) .................(objective) to sell more, so contributing towards (6).....................(the amount of products used or bought), however, still provide a philosophical challenge to any retailer.

D. There is considerable work to be done in the (7) ...........................(shops) and the way we communicate with our (8)... ........................(the people who buy products).

E. B&Q’s environmental ( 9 ) . ......... (a plan of action) started at the beginning of 1990.

F. A (10) .. ……………..(place where goods are produced) in Bolivia is expanding rapidly to make wooden garden furniture. We (11) ……………..(calculate) that we buy products from sixty countries.