成人快手

Watch: Sustainability and plastics

Learn about sustainability and plastics with Sue Venir.

Back to top

What does sustainability mean?

  • If something is sustainable, it can be carried on for a long period of time.

  • Being sustainable means doing little or no harm to the environment.

  • Throwing plastic bags away is not sustainable because the planet will eventually run out of landfill space.

Sue surrounded by heaps of plastic bottles.
Back to top

What is single-use plastic?

A cartoon of showing a hand pouring a bottle into a cup and a food carton with a plastic fork in it.
  • Some plastic objects are only used once then thrown away. These are called single-use plastics.
  • This includes things such as plastic bags, bottles, straws and crisp packets.
A cartoon of showing a hand pouring a bottle into a cup and a food carton with a plastic fork in it.
A cartoon of a plastic bag next to some fish bones on the ground. It is year 2225.
  • These objects cannot be recycled and can take hundreds of years to biodegrade.

  • It is not sustainable to keep on using them - and if we do, we could permanently harm the environment.

  • Plastic harms animals and wildlife in rivers, lakes and oceans.
  • To help the planet, people can:
    • recycle
    • reduce packaging
    • reuse things such as bottles.
A cartoon turtle in the sea with a plastic ring caught around its body.
Back to top

Where does all the plastic go?

Image gallerySkip image gallerySlide 1 of 3, Landfill site: waste disposal is a big problem around the world. , Landfill site Waste disposal is a big problem around the world.
Back to top

What is recycling?

A cartoon person is standing with a banana outside a Grocer's with a rubbish bin and recycling bin.
  • When something is recycled it is reused or turned into something else.

  • Materials such as glass, metal and paper are quite easy to recycle and certain types of plastic are too.

  • Objects that aren鈥檛 recycled are taken to landfill sites.

  • These are places where rubbish gets buried and left to rot away and biodegrade.

A cartoon waste disposal truck dumps lots of rubbish in a big hole.
Back to top

Activity: Quiz 鈥 Sustainability and plastics

Back to top

Bitesize Primary games. game

Play fun and educational primary games in science, maths, English, history, geography, art, computing and modern languages.

Bitesize Primary games
Back to top

More on Sustainability

Find out more by working through a topic