Well hello and welcome to this English lesson about junk and garbage.
I felt kinda bad making this lesson, because it somewhat reflects on how wasteful we are as a civilization.
I was finding pictures I realized that we make a lot of stuff and then we throw a lot of stuff away.
That's the verb we use quite often when talking about junk and garbage.
So in this lesson I'll look at all of the things that we don't need anymore and the words and phrases we use in English to talk about them.
So once again welcome to this English lesson about junk and garbage.
Junk.
Things that are old, broken, or no longer useful.
Um so when you have something, it does something for you.
A brand new couch is really nice to sit on, but eventually it might get a number of tears in it or the legs might break, and then we would just say it's junk.
So Maybe you're going to buy a used couch from a friend and you go to look at it and you're like that's just junk.
I'm not giving you money for this.
That is junk.
We use the word junk quite a bit in talk in general about things that are no longer useful.
Hey did you what did you do with your old computer?
Oh it was junk.
I just recycled it.
Um hey can I buy your old car when you're done using it?
And then I might reply and say it's junk.
It just needs to go to the auto wreckers.
So junk.
Things that are old.
Um broken or no longer useful.
And you can see there's quite a bit of junk here.
An old couch, an old table.
Looks like some foam from an old mattress.
I would see that and just think that's a pile of junk.
Trash, garbage, garbage truck.
Let me go back to trash garbage.
I thought a different slide was next.
I was mistaken.
Trash and garbage are the words we use to talk about waste material that is thrown away.
Now, it can depend on where you live and what part of the English speaking country you're in.
We generally use the word garbage, whereas someone in the state of Michigan in the United States might use the word trash.
They are mostly interchangeable but there is a regional difference.
So we have garbage.
Brent might have trash.
I haven't asked Brent from uh American English with Brent.
I'm pretty sure he might use the word trash, but waste material that is thrown away, and then I would call those garbage bags.
Someone else might call those trash bags.
We have what's called a garbage truck.
A large vehicle used to collect and transport waste from homes or businesses.
For us the garbage truck comes on that's our garbage day.
Um, but this is a large truck which is usually driven by one person and there's usually another person on the back that gets on and off the truck to throw all of the garbage into the truck.
So garbage truck.
A large vehicle used to collect and transport waste which from homes or businesses.
And I kind of mentioned it already garbage day, the scheduled day when garbage is collected from homes or buildings by a garbage truck.
So in my part of the world garbage day is once a week.
For us garbage day is on Thursday.
On Wednesday night we get all of our garbage ready so that we can put it out by the road and the morning on Thursday, and then the garbage truck will come to get it.
So garbage day, the scheduled day when garbage is collected from homes or buildings by a garbage truck.
Sometimes the day changes.
If there's a holiday, our garbage day might be on Friday instead of Thursday but yes, garbage day.
The day you put your garbage by the road.
Rubbish.
So I did need to mention this.
Waste or unwanted material commonly used in British English.
I know what rubbish is.
I don't use the word rubbish very often.
Um I don't use the word rubbish bin.
I use the word garbage can to talk about the thing you put garbage in. apparently if you go across the Atlantic Ocean from Canada to the UK they generally say rubbish and then they put it in the rubbish bin or I think they just say bin.
So rubbish.
I
I do use this word in a different way though.
If someone tells me something that I don't think is true, I might say, oh, that's rubbish.
Meaning that I don't believe what they are saying, but rubbish, waste or unwanted material commonly used in British English.
Waste.
A general term for unwanted things that are not needed.
So when you talk about waste you might be talking about garbage.
When Jen cuts flowers she snips off the end and the bottom part is waste.
We compost it of course.
Um so anything that isn't wanted can be considered waste.
And you can even waste time if you wanna use it as a verb.
But yes, a general term for unwanted things that are not needed electronic waste or e-waste.
We generally just say e-waste now old electronics that no longer work or are obsolete.
So in Canada when you buy something that has know wire or cable or computer chips in it.
Anything that is electronic.
You actually pay an extra tax when you buy it.
And that money is used to properly recycle it at the end of its useful life.
So when I buy a computer I actually spend an extra little bit of money, like I'm required to, so that when I am done using the computer I can bring it to the e-waste place and they can recycle it properly.
But electronic waste, things like if you look here, I think there's an old radio cordless phone, an old mobile phone, cell phone.
I think there's a car stereo at the far end and some printed circuit boards.
So there's a lot of e-waste um in this pile and it will hopefully all get recycled and they can reuse some of the things that are in it litter.
So I use this word primarily to talk about small pieces of trash left in public places.
So, as I mentioned at the beginning of the lesson, when I go for a walk, there's lots of litter on the side of the road.
People drink their coffee and they throw the cup out of the window and it it really, really annoys me.
When you go to the park in Canada, there are garbage cans everywhere but people still litter.
People just throw things on the ground.
Last year, Jen and I went to a baseball game and when we were done watching the baseball game there was litter everywhere around the seats.
So, the specific form of garbage.
Litter.
Small pieces of trash left in public places.
And then let's look at the difference between scraps and scrap.
So the same word but used in a different way.
When I talk about scraps I mean small leftover pieces of food or material.
And If I was to build something out of wood, I would cut the wood and I would use the pieces I need, but the rest would be scraps.
There would just be a pile of scraps on the ground when I'm done.
When you prepare food, there's usually scraps orange peels, potato peels, maybe the ends of the tomato, and then you might what we do.
We feed our scraps to the chickens.
But scraps small leftover pieces of food or material.
And then scrap.
We often use scrap the word scrap to talk about discarded material that reprocessing or recycling.
So this we would call scrap metal.
It's quite common in Canada.
We do not throw away metal, but to take scrap metal to a metal recycling facility because they will give you money for it.
So So, every few years on the farm we will put all of our scrap metal into a bin and we will bring it to the scrap metal recycler and they will give us money for it.
So it's very very nice.
So scrap is discarded material for reprocessing or for recycling.
Junkyard.
A place where old or broken items or vehicles are stored.
So in Canada and I'm not sure what it's like in other parts of the English speaking world.
When you say junkyard, we are generally referring to a place with lots of old cars that you can go and buy parts from or that they might eventually recycle.
So when I say junkyard it's almost always about vehicles.
Like where did you get those used tires?
Oh I bought them I went to the junkyard.
They had some they had the same car there and I bought really really cheap tires.
And can mean a place that has other things.
They might have other, like old fridges or stoves or things like that, but for me, if someone says junkyard, this is what I picture.
A place with lots of old vehicles. junk food.
So a little off topic, but we use the word junk for a lot of different things and I'm gonna go through some of them.
Junk food is food that is unhealthy and has little nutritional value. it's usually very yummy.
So here you have some looks like some little chocolates and some chips and some tortilla chips.
And at the far end you have some cookies and chocolate.
And hot dogs sometimes fast food is also considered junk food.
Um so a variety of foods that are not healthy.
So have very little nutritional value but are are quite tasty.
I think there's some soda or what I call pop there as well in the glass in the middle. junk mail.
Unwanted advertisements sent by mail or post.
So, we still get mail every day but most of it is junk mail.
It's usually what we call flyers advertising things that are on sale at different stores and rarely ever get a letter.
Like there's actually a letter on this pile of junk mail.
And so in Canada we postal system is not profitable and is going bankrupt basically.
But they won't stop delivering mail every day.
I think they should just deliver mail once a week.
And then they should get rid of a lot of the junk mail or charge more money to deliver it.
So, you can see here, I'm not sure what is $79 per month.
I don't think that's for a vehicle.
That would be very very cheap but you have a wide variety of what we would call junk mail.
When you talk about email though, it says by email.
Most of the time I use the word spam, like I get a lot of spam or junk email, but spam is probably the more common term drawer.
I think everyone has one of these in their house.
Uh and I think I did teach this in another lesson once.
A drawer used to store random items.
This looks a lot like my junk drawer.
My junk drawer has a like old screwdrivers and little bolts and old key fobs from cars we don't have anymore and a variety of things.
Let's see if we can get this bigger.
It might go off the top of the screen.
Yeah, old screwdriver.
A bottle opener is in there.
Um, this reminds me of the book spy that we used to have with our kids, where they would list a bunch of words and then show a picture like this and you have to find everything in it but a junk drawer.
A drawer used to store random items.
I think we actually have two junk drawers if I think about it. room.
We don't have a junk room.
This is you gotta have a pretty big house to have a junk room.
So a room used oops a room used to store unwanted or unused items.
So yes we do not have a junk room.
I think when we first got married, we We sort of had a room like this, but we didn't actually own enough stuff to to have a room full of junk.
But, as you can see, this room maybe this person doesn't use their sewing machine anymore
Maybe they just have lots of books that they don't read and old clothes.
They keep it in their junk room. pile.
A pile of things that are no longer useful.
So this is not as common now as when I was a kid.
So when I was a kid in the late 70s, early 80s, a lot of people on their farm would have a junk pile.
They would just pile things they didn't need.
We weren't able back then to recycle metal as easily.
We weren't able to recycle plastic.
And so many people just threw things on a junk pile.
So maybe at the back of their yard, they would just have a pile of junk.
So here you can see, there's like some old barrels and a plastic lid from a pail, and I don't even know what all of this stuff is, but it's basically a pile of things that are no longer useful, and we would call that a junk box junk, or we sometimes say space debris, broken satellites or debris floating in space, and this, I think, is actually becoming a problem.
The more and more we send into space as humans, we are just wasteful people, and so eventually, wherever there are humans, there will be junk.
And so the same is true for space.
So broken satellites satellites that have been up there and have stopped working.
Maybe I don't know if satellites get hit sometimes by space debris like meteors or comets.
Not comets.
Probably not comets.
But, But uh, certainly if you look online, I think they've mapped every single piece of space junk and you can see where each piece is.
But yes broken satellites or debris floating in space. salvageable.
It's a hard word to say.
Let me say it again.
It's hard for me to say salvageable.
Salvageable.
Something that can be saved or reused.
If you were driving along and you saw this old car, you might think to yourself oh, I wonder if that, if the owner wants to sell it, I think it is salvageable.
I think I could buy that car and I could do one of two things I could rebuild it, drive it again, or I might be able to sell lots of the parts from the car.
It's salvageable.
Um, so that's how I would describe a car like this, because it looks like the kind of car that someone would want to do that with.
If my old van was sitting on our property with all weeds growing around it.
People wouldn't think it was salvageable.
But this is kind of a fun old sports car.
An old muscle car that someone might think is salvageable.
They might think it can be saved or reused.
Should I say the word one more time?
Salvageable. junk or scrap a car.
So to get rid of a car because it is no longer useful often by selling it to a junkyard.
So this is what I talked about earlier.
If blue van still runs great but in a year I might decide to junk it.
I might I might decide to scrap it.
And that means I will take it to the junkyard.
Or what we sometimes call the auto wreckers.
So kind of a weird term but the auto wreckers I guess they wreck cars.
They mush them and sell them to be recycled.
Um I would bring it to the auto records or junkyard and they would give me money for it.
The last time I scrapped a car.
The last time I junked a car.
I
Um I think I got $480 for my old van.
I think that's the most I've gotten.
Canadian dollars.
So, not a huge amount of money but still uh very nice.
Uh.
So to junk or scrap a car, to get rid of a car because it is no longer useful, often by selling it to uh junkyard.
Junker, old or poor quality item often a vehicle that is barely usable.
So I do use this to talk about vehicles.
Um sometimes people just like a junker can still be drivable.
Someone might drive an old junker in the winter.
So keep their really nice car in a garage, because in the winter in Canada there's lots of salt on the road, and so it's important that you, if you have a very, very nice car, that you sometimes don't drive it and then it doesn't get salt on it and it doesn't rust.
So Junker old or poor quality item often a vehicle that is barely usable.
Waste management.
The process of collecting, handling, and disposing of waste.
So this is the general term that all of the people that work in the area of recycling composting, picking up trash, picking up garbage
It's called waste management.
If I said to my cousin what what do you do for a living?
What's your job?
He might say oh I work in waste management.
So drive a garbage truck on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and I work at the landfill the other days of the week.
So waste management, the general term for the whole industry, the whole of the workers and all of the equipment that's used to manage garbage and recycling and compost waste management dump.
A place where waste is left or buried.
Landfill, a place where garbage is buried under the ground.
There's probably a slight difference between these two places.
In Canada we often refer to it as the dump or the landfill.
Dump is actually now a place where you can bring anything, and there are different places to put it.
In fact I did actually do a video at the dump.
Um I should find that at some point.
If you search for Bob the Canadian Let's Learn English at the dump.
You'll find it.
But when I go to the dump I can bring an old air conditioner.
I can bring garbage.
I can bring recycling and there's a place for all of it.
The landfill though is the place where the things that can't be recycled go.
The So it's a place where garbage is buried underground.
We've decided we can't do anything with it.
We're just going to bury it.
So that's the difference for me between dump and landfill. recycling center.
Okay, this is a long definition.
A place where recyclable materials like paper plastic, glass and metal are collected, sorted and processed so they can be made into new products.
In Canada, we have a pretty extensive recycling program.
I'm not sure everything gets recycled, but you can put separate our recycling into plastic paper metal, and then there's also compost now, which is food scraps and other organic material.
But yes, a recycling center is a place where they will sort this.
A place where recyclable materials like paper plastic, glass and metal are collected, sorted and processed so they can be made into new products.
I think we should do more of this by the way. composting facility.
A place where organic waste like food scraps and yard waste is collected and broken down naturally into nutrient rich compost that can be used to improve soil.
So we do have compost pickup.
So we can put things in a compost bin it will get picked up and it will get composted.
The reason you see all the different long rows is that is, different stages of the process of things getting composted.
Garbage can, trash can, rubbish bin.
A container used to hold waste before it is thrown away.
So again, depending on where you are speaking English, country you are in.
You'll want to find out what the local people say.
Here we often use garbage can.
You know if I have something I don't that I want to throw out I throw it in the garbage can.
We might say trash can.
We don't say rubbish bin in Canada but if you're in the UK you might say rubbish bin.
So garbage can trash, can rubbish bin, garbage Um a container used to hold waste before it is thrown away.
Recycling bin.
A container used for items that can be processed and reused.
So we often have these in public places where you can recycle paper, plastic or cans to Um.
Sometimes people throw things in the wrong spot, which is a little bit annoying, I think, because then someone down the road has to sort everything.
But yes, recycling bin a container used for items that can be processed and reused, compost bin
A container used for organic waste that can decompose into fertilizer.
So we often now call it the green bin.
In Canada the blue bin is for paper and plastics and metal.
And the green bin is for compost.
So if you have this person looks like they have some eggshells Is that broccoli or lettuce?
Something like that, but definitely food scraps can go in the compost bin and then here in my part of Canada compost gets picked up and it gets composted.
We however, feed most of our food scraps to our chickens, but there are some things that chickens can't eat.
A large outdoor container used to collect and store garbage.
You will see these around buildings and public places because they are basically just large garbage cans.
So again, a dumpster, a large outdoor container used to collect and store garbage.
Behind our school, there are three dumpsters.
One is for paper and cardboard.
One is for actual garbage and I think the other one is for some kind of one of the recycling types.
But yes, dumpsters.
And then what's nice is the garbage truck can pick like you see the little slots on the side.
The garbage truck has like a forklift on the front and it can lift the whole dumpster up and dump it into the back.
So dumpster a large outdoor container used to collect and store garbage.
