Words for the environment, and the passive
You can use the main words for the environment, and form the passive correctly when the action matters more than who does it.
Writing about the environment is full of things being done. A forest is cleared or a river is cleaned, and who does it often matters less than what happens.
English uses the passive for this, and it runs through the whole unit. Academic Task 1 can be a process diagram, which is described mostly in the passive. The words for the topic come first.
Warm-up
What happens first?
A guide is showing visitors round a glass recycling plant. Play the clip once and listen for the order of the steps.
Clip 1: the glass recycling plant
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In the exam you hear this once. Here you may play it again after you have tried.
What is done to the glass first, once it reaches the plant?
Words for the environment
Harm and pollution
Make air, water or land dirty and harmful. Pollution is the harm done, or the waste that does it. Plastic waste pollutes rivers long before it reaches the sea.
Gases sent into the air by cars, factories and power stations. The city plans to cut emissions from its buses.
Things people throw away. Usually uncountable: household waste, plastic waste. Food waste is collected separately in some cities.
The natural home of an animal or plant. Clearing the forest destroyed the habitat of many birds.
At risk of disappearing for ever. Endangered turtles still nest on this beach.
Cutting down forests over a large area. Deforestation leaves the soil open to heavy rain.
Protecting nature
Protecting plants, animals and wild places. A conservation group looks after the wetland.
The variety of plants and animals in one place. Old forests usually have more biodiversity than new plantations.
From a source that does not run out, such as the sun or the wind. The school gets half its electricity from renewable sources.
Able to continue for a long time without harming the environment. Sustainable fishing leaves enough fish to breed.
Recycle: turn used material into something new. Reuse: use a thing again as it is. Glass is recycled, and a cloth bag is reused.
Bring a place back to its earlier, healthy state. Volunteers are restoring a river that was polluted for years.
Grammar: the passive
In a passive sentence, the subject is the thing the action happens to. The doer moves to the end after by, or is left out.
- Active: Volunteers clean the beach every Sunday.
- Passive: The beach is cleaned every Sunday.
You form it with be and the past participle: cleaned, cut, thrown. The tense goes on be.
Tense by tense
Present simple, for facts and processes. The bins are emptied every Monday.
Past simple, for finished events. Large areas of forest were cleared in the 1990s.
Present perfect, for changes up to now. Over 2,000 trees have been planted since March.
Modal verbs, for proposals and rules. Plastic bags should be banned in supermarkets.
When to use it
- The doer is unknown, obvious or unimportant. The rubbish is collected at night. Who collects it adds nothing.
- In a process. The steps matter more than the people: The glass is crushed and then melted.
- In formal writing. It sounds impersonal, and it keeps the topic at the front: Solar panels have been fitted to many new homes.
- With by only when the doer is worth naming. The reserve is managed by local volunteers.
Where it goes wrong
- The water filtered and stored in a tank. Without is, the water seems to do the filtering. Write The water is filtered and stored in a tank.
- The dam was build in 1990. The passive needs the participle: was built. Check the irregular ones: thrown, grown, taken, cut.
- A flood was happened. Verbs with no object, such as happen, occur, rise, disappear and die, have no passive. Write A flood happened.
- The bottles in the bin is recycled. Be agrees with the new subject: The bottles are recycled.
- The rubbish is collected by people. If by adds nothing, leave it out.
Watch me do one
I'll take three sentences from a student's report on recycling paper. The first is Workers soak the old paper in water.
The report is about the paper, and the workers are obvious. So I move the old paper to the front and leave the workers out.
It's a process, so I use the present simple passive: is plus the participle. The old paper is soaked in water.
Next: A machine breaks the paper into tiny fibres. Same move. Break is irregular, so the participle is broken: The paper is broken into tiny fibres.
Last: The fibres dry on hot rollers. Here dry has no object, so there is nothing to move to the front. That sentence stays active.
Practice with Elita6 questions
Six questions, easiest first. One of them uses the clip from the recycling plant again.
Which form?
Choose the words that complete the sentence correctly.
Every Monday, the recycling ______ from outside each house.
Words and meanings
Match each word to its meaning.
Hear the passive
Play the clip from the warm-up again. Write the two words the guide says in the gap.
Clip 1: the glass recycling plant
0:00 / 0:00
In the exam you hear this once. Here you may play it again after you have tried.
After that, it's crushed into small pieces, and those pieces down in a furnace.
Write no more than 2 words.
Find the mistake
A student wrote about a flood. One sentence has a mistake with the passive. Choose it.
Which sentence contains the error?
A change up to now
Complete the sentence with the verb in brackets. Use the present perfect passive.
Since the project began, over 3,000 young trees along the river. (plant)
Write no more than 3 words.
A process in three steps
Complete each gap with the verb in brackets, in the present simple. Decide for each one whether it needs the passive.
Food waste (collect) from homes in green bins. At the site, it (mix) with garden waste. Inside the heap, the temperature (rise) to about 60 degrees, and after several weeks the compost is sold to farmers.
Write no more than 2 words in each gap.
Use it
A process where you live
Describe a process you know from where you live, in four or five sentences.
Describe a process from your town or city: how rubbish or recycling is collected and dealt with, how water reaches homes, or how a local product is made. Use the passive at least three times, one verb that stays active, and two words from this lesson.
0 / 50 words
Set up your learning path at the top of this lesson to get band-specific feedback.
Before you go
Form the passive with be and the past participle, and put the tense on be: is collected, was cleared, have been planted.
Choose it when the action matters more than the doer: in processes, in formal writing, and when the doer is obvious.
Keep verbs with no object active. Happen, rise and disappear have no passive.
Add by only when the doer is worth mentioning.
Next: Next, a reading lesson: a passage on mangrove forests, and a summary to complete with words chosen from a box.