Tag: economy

A good job stimulates the brain, challenges preconceptions, nurtures curiosity and encourages ambition and excellence.  Luckily for me, I have this.  Clients at Inglés Málaga are a talent bank; they come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and represent a broad variety of professions, trades and sectors.  However, they have two things in common, the first is that they are improving their English level; the second is that they teach me something every day.

Last week Paco, a high school maths teacher, (and an amazing illustrator) taught me the idea of monetising plastic waste.  He explained this complex idea really well, and I was over the moon with his use of advanced level English to persuade me of the merits to this idea. But after his class I thought: ‘’OK, but how would it work practically?’’ So, I started checking it out on the Internet and came across an organisation called The Plastic Bank which does this already. So, why not improve your English and stimulate your brain by listening to the CEO and founder of The Plastic Bank on his Ted Talks presentation: What if you could change plastic trash into cash?

The presentation is in English, and you can use the English transcript to improve word recognition and listening comprehension.   In addition, if you are a teacher, you could easily use this organisation in your classes to teach children mathematical concepts and economic theory.

You could also be inspired by two teenage girls who set up a campaign to ban plastic bags from the beautiful Indonesian island of Bali if you listen to their Ted Talks presentation: ”Our campaign to ban plastic bags from Bali”

So Paco, thank you; you have successfully challenged my preconceptions about recycling and plastic waste, and, demonstrated a level of English that many native English speakers would be envious of, well done! I´m also going to change the way I recycle, and ban plastic bags from my personal shopping.  You are a change maker!

And now my mind is on The Regional Government of Andalusia: I wonder, how can we encourage them to buy the cities´ plastic waste and convert it into credit for education, training and professional development? Come on La Junta, it´s time to put your tick box lists down the toilet, sack all the sycophantic bureaucrats, and start to really listen to the talent bank that you have walking on the streets of Málaga every day.  Furthermore, which one of you ego-centric government officials doesn´t want a legacy; go on, stand out from the crowd and do something inspirational.