English Audio Request

Describe an example of serious pollution

Where is it?
Why did you notice it?
What could be done about it?

This is one of the most topical issues at the moment. I keep seeing newspaper articles and TV news reports about it saying how serious and potentially catastrophic this could be. In my country, awareness of the importance of this has been raised recently and just about everybody knows that unless something is done to tackle pollution and contamination, the future will be very bleak. For me, living in a huge metropolitan area, the pollution I most notice is the quality of the air. Actually, you can’t help noticing it if you live where I do because as soon as you open your mouth, you feel contaminated air hitting the back of your throat. You want to cough and you are half-choking all the time. If you run, say across a busy road, you are completely breathless when you reach the other side. Nobody bothers wearing white because, by the end of the day, your clean shirt or blouse has turned a mucky greyish colour. It’s absolutely disgusting. There are times when the government closes local schools and advises the elderly to stay indoors all day. They are so worried about the health implications of the contaminated air. The reasons why our air is so dirty are obvious for everyone to see. Just take a glance at the horizon in my city and you will see thousands of factories belching out poisonous smoke and fumes. Though the cause is not really in dispute, the solution is a good deal more complex. Various things could be tried. Factories could be re-located to less densely-populated regions. Some critics of the government have even suggested closing down the worst polluting factories altogether. Unfortunately, though, it isn’t quite that simple. Firstly, if you move the factories, you will also have to re-locate workers and that will be extremely unpopular. If factories are closed, workers will lose their jobs and that will have serious implications for the whole economy. So, as you can see, it is a complex issue and not likely to be resolved any time soon. That’s a tremendous shame because our country is spectacularly beautiful but, if you visit major cities, all you will see is smog, dust and grime.