Describe an environment law

Band 8 Sample

I would like to talk about a policy which the government put in place a long time ago, and I believe that has had a tremendously positive effect on the daily life of Vietnamese people.

I don’t remember the exact official title of the regulation, but generally, it states that people must separate their household waste into three groups: organic, inorganic and recyclable materials, each of which has been assigned a different coloured bin. To effectively make this rule work, the government has had to install thousands of different coloured bins throughout the city’s public areas.

In the past, waste disposal was such a daunting task for the local government to deal with because most people had very little environmental awareness, and they often just mixed their trash into one giant mess, dumping it into rivers, on the streets or in any public place they felt like. This became quite an alarming situation in Vietnam for a number of years and had an extremely detrimental impact on the environment, and not to mention the mess it was creating in many urban areas.

So, by introducing this new law and by effectively campaigning it, a clear shift has occurred in people’s daily lives, as now there is an effective and practical solution to get rid of everyday waste, and people’s awareness around this issue has now significantly increased over the years. I’m really quite happy with how this law has helped to solve the waste problem in my country, rather than only the ineffective talk about the problem that was happening beforehand.

Vocabulary highlights:

1. tremendously – extremely or very much
2. regulation – an official law or rule
3. household waste – garbage from your house eg. food scraps, plastic packaging, boxes etc
4. organic – something natural, not with any chemicals
5. waste disposal – throwing away garbage
6. daunting task – a task that makes you feel slightly worried or frightened about doing it
7. environmental awareness – to think about or know about environmental problems
8. alarming situation – a serious problem
9. detrimental impact – a negative or damaging effect
10. not to mention – used when you want to emphasise something you are about to say
11. effectively campaigning – to successfully
12. a clear shift – an obvious change
13. get rid of – to be free of something