Environmental protection

- Környezeti ártalmak: levegő, víz, talaj

- Szelektív hulladékgyűjtés
- Újrahasznosítás
- Alternatív energiaforrások

Környezeti ártalmak

All of us know how important it is to protect our environment and we hear about the negative effects
that our lifestyles have on nature and our world every day. A very serious result of our careless living
is pollution. One of the main effects of pollution is global warming, for example, which causes the
changes in our climate and makes temperature rise. This leads (ez vezet) to many problems for
humans, plants and animals. Global warming has been present since the end of the 19th century, but
we are still not doing enough to stop it. We are still polluting our earth.

The 3 main kinds of pollution are: air, water and soil pollution.
Air pollution: Air pollution means that the air we breathe becomes dirty and bad for our health. Air is
polluted by natural activities –like volcanic eruptions (vulkánkitörések) and human activities. We
have a lot of factories which emit (kibocsát) a lot of carbon monoxide (széngáz), methane (metán),
and other chemicals like lead (ólom), nitrogene-oxid, smoke and fumes (gőz, füst). Burning fossil fuels
(állati maradványokból képződő energiaforrások) like oil, gas and coal (szén) produce smog and air
pollution. The polluted air causes lung diseases, which can be dangerous for people and animals too.
The chemicals that we use can also be great pollutants. We have to check what we use, select and
recycle waste and choose bicycle instead of using car. Some matters increase cancers and allergies
too.

Water pollution: The Earth has still water supplies (készlet), but if we pollute the water and seas with
more and more chemicals, poison, industrial waste, oil spills (olajkiömlés) and acid rain, we will run
out of clean water. Many people think that rivers, lakes and seas are perfect places to dump their
litter into. There are some factories which throw their garbage into the water. The oil pollution is the
most tragic thing that can happen to the seas: the water’ s quality will become worse, and the
animals and plants will suffer from the oil- it’s very difficult to clean the water after an oil spill. The
sewage (szennyvíz) waste from houses and industries also end up in our rivers and seas, but usually
still contains the harmful substances (káros anyagok). We should waste as little water as possible and
always use environmentally friendly household cleaning and materials- like vinegar for cleaning
bathroom or baking soda to wash white hangings.

Soil pollution: Water and soil pollution are connected many times. If you use natural products for
farming and gardening, you can prevent poison from getting into our soil. If poison- like pesticides
(rovarirtó szerek), artificial fertilizer (műtrágya) gets into plants, people and animals eat it, it can be
very dangerous especially for the liver. I think that recycling is an important step to protect the soil
and the environment. We can select the waste, and in villages we can collect the organic matters to
compost them. Deforestation is also a kind of land pollution. We need trees to protect the air’s
clean, because they give oxygen, but it’s also necessary to have many trees because of animals and
birds. We use wood for housing, furniture and heat, but we don’t think how important it is to plant
small trees instead of cut-out trees.
There are some endangered species, they are on the edge of extinction, like polar bears, elephants,
gorillas, whales, tigers, crocodiles, snow leopards, cheetahs (gepárd), and some kind of butterflies.

What can we do to protect the environment?

- We have to collect the used batteries, because the acid they contain is very dangerous.
- We should drop litter in litter bins in the streets.
- People shouldn’t throw cigarette butts away, but we should throw them into an ashtray on
the top of the bin.
- There is a lot of dog dirt in the streets- people who walk with their dog have to bring a dirt
bag and pick up the dirt his dog made.
- We shouldn't use a car for short distances. Instead of cars we should use bicycles or public
transport.
- If we travel by car, we should use one car for 4 people, so our carbon- footprint will be less.
- We shouldn't use foil, because it won’t decompose.
- We should recycle what we can and select the waste.
- We shouldn’t buy products which are packed in a lot of wrapping paper, because it’s
unnecessary.
- We have to stop deforestation, because the hole on the ozone layer will be bigger and
bigger.
- We have to use alternative energy sources.

Szelektív hulladékgyűjtés
We can collect waste in 4 parts: glass, colour glass, paper and plastic. The local government organises
that every family gets a sack in every week, which we can use to collect our waste. When disposal
men are coming, they bring us the sacks: a yellow one for papers and a green one for plastic waste. I
think it’s a really good idea,. You can also select waste in selective containers (szelektív
hulladékgyűjtők).

Recycling/ Újrahasznosítás
If we select and collect the waste, the paper, glass, coloured glass and plastic will be recycled.
There are some things about which people think that it’s just waste, but we can recycle them! For
example from a plastic bottle we can create flowers, but we can use them to store things, or
something else. If our wardrobe is full of clothes, we should select the clothes that we don’t wear,
and give them as present to poor people, or create something new from the materials- e.g. puppets,
decoration, flowers, lampoons, pillowcase (párnahuzat) or make a candlestick (gyertyatartó) or
flower- bowl (virágtartó).
Alternatív energia források

Non- renewable energy sources (fossil fuels) renewable energy sources (alternative)
wood/ paper wind-power
oil solar-power
petrol geothermal heat
coal hydro power
gas waves
RUN OUT OF THEM REPRODUCE THEMSELVES
Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse solar power generators may produce most of
gases that contributes to global warming, the world's electricity within 50 years, reducing
causing the average surface temperature of the emissions of greenhouse gases that harm
the Earth to rise  the environment

Organisations
 Greenpeace:
- exists to protect the environment wherever it is threatened
- Tries to come up with solutions to environmental problems
- focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation,
overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, and anti-nuclear issues

 WWF: it’s a group which protects endangered wildlife

- Conserve the natural living world / habitat of animals
- Establish national parks
- They aim at saving endangered speeches (kitűzi célul)
- focuses on the conservation of the world's biodiversity: oceans and coasts, forests, and
freshwater ecosystems.
- Among other issues, it is also concerned with climate change.