Environment and sustainability

"Sustainable" is a weak-vocabulary word examiners flag, and most candidates get it the wrong way round. A sustainable material can be supplied without running out — a RENEWABLE resource such as beech, since trees are replanted. Aluminium is not: it is smelted from bauxite, a FINITE ore. Read "sustainable" as "supply can be maintained".

Candidates often cannot use "biodegradable" — hardboard was widely missed. Biodegradable means broken down naturally by micro-organisms. Recyclable means reprocessed into new products. A material can be one, both or neither: paper is both; many plastics are recyclable but not biodegradable. Do not give one as a reason for the other.

On Paper 1 material-choice parts, environmental credit comes only from a SPECIFIC material with a SPECIFIC reason. Vague words — "eco-friendly", "green" — or a generic "plastic" score nothing. Marks went to a named material tied to a real property: card or Corriflute because it can be recycled, a replantable timber because it is renewable.

A recurring slip is naming a fossil fuel (coal, oil, gas) as a renewable energy source, or confusing "renewable" with "recyclable". Renewable describes an ENERGY SOURCE that is naturally replenished and never runs out — solar, wind, hydro, tidal, geothermal, biomass. Fossil fuels are finite, so non-renewable. Recyclable is about reprocessing a MATERIAL — a different idea.

Reuse and recycle are different steps often muddled. Reuse means using an item again AS IT IS, without reprocessing — refilling a bottle, passing it on. Recycle means REPROCESSING the material into something new — melting the bottle to make new plastic. Reuse keeps more embodied energy, so it sits above recycling.

The Mobius loop (three chasing arrows) does NOT promise a product will be, or has been, recycled. It means the material CAN be recycled where facilities exist, or — with a percentage — that it holds that share of recycled content. Whether it is actually recycled depends on local collection and sorting. The symbol says the material is recyclable, not that the item is recycled.

Believing nuclear power is renewable because it is low-carbon. Renewable means naturally replenished and never running out — sunlight, wind, water, geothermal, biomass. Nuclear fuel is uranium, a finite ore that is used up, so nuclear is NON-renewable even though low-carbon. Low-carbon and renewable differ; the finite group is fossil fuels and nuclear.