Banning single-use plastic products - Worksheet 2

C1 Advanced · Cross Text Multiple Matching · Cambridge Exam Booster for Advanced, Cambridge University Press

You are going to read four extracts from articles in which experts give their views on banning single-use plastic products such as shopping bags and drinks bottles. For questions 1–4, choose from the experts A-D. The experts may be chosen more than once.

Doran Yusef

There has been little debate as to whether it actually makes ecological sense to ban single-use plastic products. I find this troublesome, given that the paper and glass, which would presumably replace the plastic used in bags and bottles respectively, use more energy than plastic in their production, therefore contributing more to global warming. Changing the material that these products are created from will have minimal financial impact, as income and employment losses in plastics and packaging would be absorbed into the manufacturing of whichever material takes its place. Costs imposed on consumers at the point of sale for plastic bags have been highly successful in reducing how many are used, so now is the moment to enforce these on other items packaged in disposable plastic. Any outright ban may be challenging to police and would have to be instigated gradually, in order to make it workable.

Hideko Suzuki

Customers have little or no direct control over what packaging a company sells its products in. It's therefore unfair to inflict additional expenses on buyers for decisions made by the producer. Along similar lines, if shops want to sell their goods, they should provide and pay for the means of carrying it home. I think the financial implications of a ban on the products are more far-reaching than anyone has predicted. You can't just remove an entire industry from a nation and expect no repercussions. What's driving the call for a ban, of course, are the catastrophic consequences to the planet of avoiding this issue. I wholeheartedly go along with the view that it needs to be addressed, but perhaps not so quickly that we end up creating more problems than we solve. These sorts of transitions take time, especially as the regulation of such a ban is likely to be extraordinarily complex.

Radislav Kovac

The majority of those calling for stopping short of a ban on throwaway plastics claim that it would be absurdly complicated to introduce and supervise. I would beg to differ. Is it really such an effort to visit a supermarket to see which manufacturers still use plastic packaging, and whether customers are being provided with plastic bags? There's no reason why they should be, as schemes worldwide whereby customers pay for these have been immensely effective and should now encompass other single-use products. Having said that, although plastic is undoubtedly a major pollutant, it would be wrong to completely ignore the likely impact of producing other more energy-intensive materials that might replace it. However, I believe these would be the lesser of two evils. Also, although the focus has largely been on packaging and bags, there needs to be a widening of the net to include other everyday items like drinking straws.

Joanna Muller

Even though sustainable industries are relatively new, there are already sufficient examples where any reductions in revenue caused by the termination of a more traditional product are in effect cancelled out by the success of its replacement. That said, imposing an immediate ban on plastic bags may well be a step too far especially if it were too sudden for consumers to cope with. However, I'm all for an obligatory raising of prices worldwide for products sold in environmentally-unfriendly packaging, in effect an extension of the highly fruitful policy of making plastic bags prohibitively expensive. This pricing strategy has been generally straightforward to monitor and oversee, as spot checks on retailers can quickly establish whether or not any legislation is being followed. Another case for gradually implementing controls is that replacing plastics, which create physical pollution, with materials that produce excessive harmful emissions during their manufacture doesn't currently make sense. Greener alternatives need to be found.

Which expert shares B's views regarding how easy it would be to implement any ban or restrictions?

Which expert has a different view to the others about adding charges to the prices of single-use plastic products?

Which expert shares A's views on the environmental impact of imposing a ban?

Which expert expresses a different view to D about the economic effects of introducing a ban?

Banning single-use plastic products

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