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1922/2024 (#13 this year)
This is the first English News after the summer vacation. How was it? Did you have anice relaxing time? I was pleasantly surprised by the weather because it was muchcooler than last year’s summer was. Did you go anywhere nice? My family and I went
to Niseko, which was a lot of fun. I think it would be great to have a second house 1 in
Niseko, but I can’t even afford 2 my first house and Niseko is a very expensive place tobuy a house in. Maybe I should start charging 100 yen for my English News and I cansave the money up so that I can buy a house in Niseko in the future. I’ll call it the housethat the English News built.
12 differences!

Last week’s answer

Something you didn’t know about single-use packaging
1. 200 million tons of plastic is used every year for single-use3 packaging.
2. By 2050, by weight4, there will be more plastic than fish in all the oceans.
3. Only about 9% of plastic is recycled.
4. Single-use plastics take over 1,000 years to decompose5.
5. To produce 1 kg of plastic takes 2 kg of oil. That’s 400 million kg per year.
6. Recycling plastic uses 88% less energy than making new plastic.
7. A lot of developing countries don’t have the infrastructure6 to deal with plastic.
8. Many people are starting to take note and major companies like Amazon are trying
to reduce the amount of plastic they use.

Europe Will Ban Single-Use Plastic Packaging
Have you ever gone shopping,come home, unpacked all of
your things, and ended up with amountain of plastic packaging?
Europe is trying to reduce thisplastic waste, which could set anexample for the rest of theworld. The European Union (EU)
has been working on cutting
down plastic use for years, andnow, in 2024, they are planning
to introduce even stricter7 rules. One of the main goals is to ensure that by
2030, all packaging used in Europe must be recyclable. This means thatcompanies will have to rethink how they make their products to make surethat the materials can be reused instead of thrown away. By 2035, the EU
wants all recyclable materials to be processed efficiently 8, meaning recycling
facilities will need to be able to handle9 large amounts of waste. Anotherimportant part of the plan is that by 2030, new plastic packaging must include
recycled materials. This is a step towards creating a circular economy10, wherematerials are continuously reused rather than discarded 11 after one use.
Additionally, the EU aims to reduce the amount of packaging waste per personby 15% by 2040. This willencourage
peopleandcompanies to use less plastic
and be more mindful12 of thewaste they produce. Other
countries
might
follow
Europe’s lead and introduce
similar laws, helping to reduce
plastic pollution globally. Thisis something Japan could
learn from. We use far too
much plastic here.
1.Second house 別荘 2.Afford 賄うことができる 3.Single-use - 使い捨て 4.By weight 重さで5.Decompose 分解する 6.Infrastructure インフラ 7.Strict 厳しい 8.Efficiently 効率的に 9.To handle
扱う 10.Circular economy 循環型経済 11.Discard 捨てる 12.Mindful 注意深いAn Unusual Job

World record
Do you like corn? Do you like mazes? Then you’ll love this week’s record. The world's
largest corn maze is in Dixon, California, at Cool Patch Pumpkins. This impressive maze is63 acres1, which is 0.255 km2. (If you don’t know how big that is, it’s 500 m by 500 m,much bigger than our school.) Each year, the maze is uniquely designed, offering a newand challenging experience for visitors. The complicated2 paths can take hours tonavigate3. The maze is carefully designed each year using GPS technology, then carved 4
out by workers. It takes a long time to make. It has become a popular attraction during
the autumn season, especially around Halloween, when it draws large crowds.

Pet Food TasterDo you have a cat or a dog? Have you ever fed them, looked at their foodand thought, “I wonder what that tastes like?” If so, this job might be foryou. You might think that cat and dog food is just made of meats andadditives5 and then canned because cats and dogs will eat anything, but that
isn’t true. Creating a new pet food is a very difficult task. Firstly, the smell
has to be good because cats and dogs rely on6 their sense of smell more thantheir sense of taste. The smell also has to be good because we have to smell
it as well. The food also has to have a good balance of nutrients 7. All of thesethings can be created by scientists, but the only way to know how the foodsmells and tastes is to smell and taste it because an animal can’t tell you
what they think. Pet food tasters have to analyze8 the food and write longreports. They start by looking at the texture and the consistency 9 of the food.
Then they smell the food and write down their opinions. Finally, they put asmall amount of the food in their mouths, and they chew it for a while. They
don’t have to swallow the food, and they can spit it out10 after the havefinished. Then they clean their mouths with water. It doesn’t sound like a
good job, but it seems to be fairly well paid. What do you think?

エーカー2.complicated 複雑な 3.navigate 航行する 4.carve 彫る“Start where you are. Use what you 1.acre
5.additive 添加物 6.rely on 頼る 7.nutrient 栄養素 8.analyze 分析する
9.consistency 一貫性 10.spit it out 吐き出す
have. Do what you can.”— Arthur Ashe