September the 13th.

A.

Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30 minute program from the Voice of America.

I'm Ashley Thompson.

And I'm Mario Ritter Jr.

This program is designed for English learners,

so we speak a little slower and we use words and phrases

especially written for people learning English. On today's program you will hear a report from John Russell on the huge amount of

plastic waste created around the world.

Then Brian Lynn reports on new iPhones from Apple.

Then Andrew Smith and Jill Robbins discuss

tag questions on lesson of the day. But first,

The world creates about 52 million metric tons of plastic pollution every year, a new study says.

More than two-thirds of that plastic comes from the global south, a term that loosely describes developing countries.

The amount of pollution is enough to fill New York City's Central Park with plastic waste as high as the Empire State

Building, researchers at the University of Leeds in Britain say. They examined waste produced on the local level

at more than 50,000 cities and towns across the world for a study recently released in the publication Nature.

The study examined plastic that goes into the open environment. It did not examine

plastic that goes into landfills or is properly burned.

For 15% of the world's population, government fails to collect and dispose of waste, the study

said.

This lack of collection and disposal is a big reason Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa

...