Talking point: Throw-away society

This week's talking point is rubbish and recycling. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas flow more easily when you meet up with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

• How often do you or your family throw away food?
• What kind of food do you throw away?
• How do you feel about it?
• What three things could you and your family do in other to throw away less food?
• Have you ever eaten anything that was past its sell-by date? Why (not)? Did anything happen?
• What kind of things do you recycle? Do you ever feel guilty about not recycling enough?
• Have you ever taken something that somebody else has thrown away? What was it? What did you do with it?
• What do you do with clothes, books or furniture that you don't want but could still be used?
• What do you do with your old mobile when you buy a new one? And with other electronic gadgets and appliances you no longer need?
• What could you local council do to make it easier to recycle where you live?
• What do you think restaurants, hotels or supermarkets should do with unused food?
• What kind of things do you think have too much packaging? When do you think packaging is really necessary?

To illustrate the point, watch this short video from How Stuff Works where we are going to learn about a new movement which is gathering momentum is today's world, Freeganism.



What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a freegan?
Can you imagine ever trying that?

Very few people are aware of the benefits other than just that you are getting free food. But, few people think environmentally in our culture, I think and as a result, they don’t realize that there is really benefit for everybody.
Freeganism came from two terms. One is “free” and the other is “vegan”. So we end up with Freegan. So I talked with a number of students who also seemed to be interested in environmental concerns and we’ve started a student faculty group…
Freeganism is, ah, it’s a anti-consumerism movement trying to oppose the excessive consumerism that is a part of our society these days.
After attending his lecture, I went to go talk to him afterward and he invited me to go a freegan dive.
I think it was pretty awesome that he found lots and lots of bottles of beer a couple of weeks ago.
So pay attention, I’m going to now provide you with your first lesson on dumpster diving. You’ll find fruits and vegetables, you’ll find meat products. If the meat is frozen, you know it’s good. Frequently you’ll find sutff without labels, in which case we call “the mystery cans”. We have no idea what’s inside the mystery can.
This past week, we walked away with about $200 worth of produce.
I just go like this with bare feet.
What’d you find over here Justin?
Student coupon books.
Ooooo, I’ll take one of those actually.
We’ve got enough here so that we can put them in every pocket of every pants we got.
Freeganism in general is anti-consumerism. And it means that you'r supposed to reduce consumption whenever possible. That’s number one.
Oh, look what I just found, and umbrella! Now let’s see if it works.
Re-use anything that you do have, that’s number two.
And finally recycle it if you can.
Look at this, and absolutely magnificent mango.   Sometimes I wonder why they throw all this stuff away.