Millions of French fries wash up on UK beach
Visitors to a UK beach saw an unusual sight earlier this week. The shoreline was covered in French fries ("chips" in British English). Thousands of bags of chips washed up on a beach in the county of Sussex. The bags were in shipping containers that fell off cargo ships in the English Channel. Bad weather caused three of the containers to fall into the sea. Currents and tides carried one of the containers and the chips to the shore. Joel Bonnici, a local man, was the first to find the chips. He said: "From a distance, it looked like the golden sand of a Caribbean beach, but on closer inspection, we saw not just the chips, but chip bags." He added: "In some areas, the chips were 75 cm deep."
Volunteers are helping to clean up the beach. Many people came to the beach to help the clean-up. Mr Bonnici said the chips were an environmental hazard. He said: "Removing the plastic bags is a priority." He is worried about a colony of seals that live near the beach. Bonnici said: "If the seals see the bags, they will play with them or try to eat them." A local official warned people to be careful if they go to the beach. She said: "Please keep dogs on leads as some of the food items washing on to the shoreline may be harmful to them." She asked people to "report any new debris". The chip spill is the second such event in Sussex recently. Last month, thousands of bananas washed ashore.
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Chat
Talk about these words from the article.
beach / unusual sight / French fries / shipping / tides / sand / Caribbean / chips / clean-up / environmental hazard / plastic bags / seals / dogs / debris / bananas
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True / False
1) Visitors to a beach saw people cooking millions of French fries. T / F
2) Millions of bags of chips washed up on the beach. T / F
3) The fries came from a shipping container from a cargo ship. T / F
4) The chips made the beach look like the Caribbean's golden sand. T / F
5) The fries were good news for seals, who had lots of food to eat. T / F
6) A local official said dogs should be on loads so they do not attack seals. T / F
7) The official asked people to report any seals they find eating chips. T / F
8) Thousands of bananas washed ashore last month in the same county. T / F
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Discussion
1) What do you think about what you read?
2) What do you think of chips or fries?
3) What are the differences between chips and French fries?
4) What things have you volunteered for?
5) What kind of hazard might the chips be?
6) What do you know about seals?
7) Who should pay for the clean-up of the spilt chips?
8) What questions would you like to ask a chip maker?
