BBC 英语学习 News Review 乐高放弃回收积木

Lego gives up its plan to

replace the plastic in its famous bricks.

This is news of you from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil, and I'm there. Make sure you watch to the end to learn vocabulary to talk about today's story.

Don't forget to subscribe to our channel, like this video and try the quiz on our website.

Now the story Lego have stopped a plan to make their toy bricks more environmentally friendly.

The Danish companies say it's because changing through recycled plastic doesn't actually reduce carbon emissions.

Around 80% of Lego bricks are currently made from an oil based plastic.

The toy maker says its fully committed to making its bricks from sustainable materials by 20 and 32.

You ve been looking at the headlines, beth, what's the vocabulary?

We have shelves, axes and back tracks.

This is news review from BBC Learning English.

Let's have a look at our 1st headline.

This is from circular, online Lego group Shelves Plans to Make Bricks from recycled P-E-T ok.

So we are looking at the verb shelves.

Now, earth Shelf as a noun is actually behind us.

Here you can see shelves. But is there a connection between the shelves in this headline and those things that is so literally, when you shelve something as a verb, you put it on a shelf normally, because you don't need it at that point.

But shelf here in the headline is metaphorical, and it just means, leave it for now.

And it is normally used in this way.

Okay, so the headline is saying that Lego are leaving their plans to make recycled bricks.

They'll stop working on it for now.

They'll shelve it exactly. And we very often see the word shelf used with plans, like we did in the headline, but it's used with other words as well, like project or idea.

So, e.g. Neil, a company might shelve an expensive project because they're running out of money.

Yes? And we often hear it used in a business or work related context.

I probably wouldn't say, I'm shelving my plans to go on holiday.

It just sounds a bit too formal.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's look at our next headline.

This is from BBC News. Lego Axes plan to make bricks from recycled bottles.

So Lego axes its recycled brick plans.

The word we're looking at is axes.

Now, beth, I have an ax.

It's this thing that I use for chopping down trees.

Is there a connection between that axe and the axes in the headline There is.

Yeah. So the axe, the physical tool that you used, is a noun here in the headline.

Axis is a verb. Now, thinking about your tree meal.

It was standing until you axed it, then it was on the ground here in the headline.

It's an environmentally friendly plan, but it's been axed, so the plan is gone.

Yeah? So chopping down the tree was a literal action, but stopping this bricks plan is metaphorical.

There was no axe, no physical acts involved.

Now, how else can we use this verb?

Axe? Well, axes commonly used when jobs or services are reduced.

So a company might act Jobs to save money, or your favorite TV show might be cancelled if it's not popular anymore.

Hmm, so we better carry on doing a good job on news of you, or they might act the program.

Let's look at that again. Let's have a look at our next headline.

This is from Gizmodo Lego back Tracks on plan to use recycled plastic for bricks.

So the language we are looking at from this headline is back tracks.

It contains the word tracks. Trains run along tracks, and they move forward.

They make progress. If a plan is on track, it means it's going well.

But how does adding back to track change its meaning?

Well, it means the opposite. So back track is about going back metaphorically, not progressing and not moving forward.

Now, lego have stopped their

plan, so they're not moving forward with it.

They are back tracking. Yeah. So

maybe you say you're going to do something, and then actually you don't.

You backtrack, you go back on

what you said. That's true. And it reminds me, neil, a few weeks ago, you looked very smart, and news review, you were a tie, and he said, I'm going to look smarter from now on.

Well, I haven't have I so I have backtracked.

Sorry, let's look at that again.

We've had shells stops for now, axes stops completely, and battracks stops progressing.

Now, if you enjoyed this episode of News Review, you might enjoy this episode where we talked about plastic in your blood.

Click here to watch. Don't forget to click here to subscribe to our channel, so you never ms.

another video. Thanks for joining us.

Bye bye.

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