Listening

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Helpful Words and Phrases

Listen and repeat.

  1. a complaint
    • ex. There are many complaints about the fake product sold online.
  2. unlawfully
    • ex. The company unlawfully produced low-quality products.
  3. a pesticide
    • ex. The farmer uses a natural pesticide to kill insects that damage plants.
  4. a hazard
    • ex. It’s a hazard to drive on wet roads.
  5. toxic
    • ex. Toxic gases pollute the air.

Article

Read the article below and answer your tutor's questions.

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The U.S. Justice Department reported a civil complaint against eBay on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to the report, eBay unlawfully sold and distributed hundreds of thousands of products that break environmental laws. These products are pesticides and devices that decrease pollution from cars.

According to Attorney Breon Peace, eBay sells unsafe devices and pesticides, among other things. And these create serious environmental and health hazards. eBay said it would do everything to defend itself. eBay said that it’s stopping and deleting more than 99.9% of the products mentioned by the Justice Department. This includes millions of products each year.

In 2021, the EPA told eBay to stop selling 170 pesticide products that weren’t properly registered or labeled. This wasn’t the only time the U.S. government did something against the sale of toxic materials. In 2018, the EPA agreed with Amazon to pay $1.2 million (¥180,556,000) for selling and distributing illegal pesticides.  And in 2020, the agency stopped Amazon and eBay from selling some pesticides that falsely claim to give protection against coronavirus.

This material was based on an article by The Associated Press.

Discussion

Choose a topic and discuss the questions with your tutor.

Complaints

  • Have you ever had a complaint about a product before? Why or why not? Discuss.
  • Imagine you are a business owner. What would you do when people make a complaint about your product? Discuss.
  • Imagine that a brand you trust received serious complaints. What would you do? Discuss.

Online Shops and their Products

  • Do you trust products that are sold in online shops? Why or why not? Discuss.
  • Imagine you bought a product online. And you discovered it has some health hazards. What would you do? Discuss.
  • In your opinion, should online stores be allowed to sell chemicals like pesticides? Why or why not? Discuss.