IELTS Speaking Part 2 – Topic: Describe a change that you think would improve your local area

I was born and raised in Hanoi and have been here for 27 years. I have watched the city develop from a small town and grow into a modern metropolitan area in the new era. With the skyrocketing population of recent years, the city’s environment has become significantly polluted. As a result, I think environmental laws should be enacted immediately to solve this problem.

First of all, Hanoi’s mayor should consider putting more trash bins out in the streets so that people won’t throw rubbish anywhere anytime. In addition, the city police should heavily fine those who are caught littering the streets. By doing so, not only could we save a lot of money on cleaning costs but we could also improve the surrounding
public scenery.

Secondly, the city should run a campaign to educate people on how to classify and separate garbage before throwing it out. This is necessary because unsorted garbage contributes to the pollution of underground water and the earth.

In my opinion, although these above actions are minor, they would contribute to diminishing the impacts of pollution in our local area if they were done on a collective level.

– born and raised in: to describe that you were born in a certain place and that you grew up there with your parents; “He was born and raised in New York but moved to California when he was 35.”

– skyrocketing: increasing, to describe when something goes up rapidly by a lot; “The skyrocketing airline prices have hurt the tourist towns, as fewer people are traveling.”

– significantly: in a sufficiently great or important way as to be worthy of attention, “Our profit was significantly less this month than we had predicted.”

– enacted: to put a law into place; “New laws have been enacted to keep people safe from gun violence.”

– rubbish: trash, garbage waste; “There is too much rubbish in this yard. Let’s clean it up!”

– heavily fine: to fine someone heavily means to charge them a lot of money because they have violated a law or regulation; “The companies were heavily fined for polluting the river.”

– littering: throwing trash on the ground rather than putting it in the bin; “Littering is against the law and you can be fined $1000.”

– scenery: what you see in the natural environment; a beautiful scenery usually includes beautiful nature scenes, but ugly scenery would have trash and pollution; “The scenery in the Turkish countryside is beautiful.”

– run a campaign: to organize and work on a program to reach a goal, such as a campaign to educate people about pollution or teenage pregnancy or alcohol abuse; “He is in charge of running the campaign to save dogs in our rural areas.”

– to classify and separate: in the context of recycling, to classify means to figure out what bin each item belongs in, such as glass, plastic, paper and then to put them into the appropriate bins; “He is lazy and doesn’t like to classify and separate his garbage.”

– to throw something out: to get rid of something; to put it in the trash; “My mother threw out all my boyfriend’s old letters.”

– unsorted: not separated; “The shirts were unsorted, so all the colors were mixed together and it made it hard to find all the red ones.”

– minor: small or insignificant; “We had a minor accident in our car today.”

– diminishing: going down, lessening; “The pain has been diminishing since I took
the aspirin.”

– impacts of: the effects of something on something else; “The impact of the storm has yet to be fully understood.”

– collective level: a collective is a group of people, so in this context if you are working at a collective level, it means that people are working together to solve a problem; “This problem will only be solved if we work at it on a collective level, not an individual level.”