Environment: Problems & Protection — B2 Essential Words
Ten essential B2 words (Environment) with the complete apparatus: pronunciation, simple definitions, natural American examples, collocations, family, the common mistake and spoken usage — plus a 15-question practice quiz. Mark your status on every word.
reuse /ˌriːˈjuːz/ verb B2 Environment
Meaning: To use something again, more than once, instead of throwing it away — bottles, bags, boxes, and ideas.
Example: Reuse the jar for rice.
Another example: We reuse water for the garden.
Collocations: reuse the bag · reuse and recycle · reused materials
Synonyms: use again, repurpose, recycle (process instead)
Antonyms: throw away, waste
Word family: reuses (v) · reusable (adj) · reuse (n)
⚠ Common mistake: Reduce, reuse, recycle — it holds the middle rank of the famous trio, and the hierarchy matters: reuse skips the factory entirely.
🗣 In spoken American English: Its bags at checkout became identity statements.
Register: Neutral — environment essential.
pollute /pəˈluːt/ verb B2 Environment
Meaning: To make air, water, or land dirty and harmful with chemicals, waste, or smoke.
Example: Factories must not pollute the river.
Another example: Cars pollute the city air.
Collocations: pollute the air · pollute rivers · polluting factories
Synonyms: contaminate, dirty, poison
Antonyms: clean, protect
Word family: pollution (n) · polluted (adj) · polluter (n)
⚠ Common mistake: Its noun POLLUTION is the headline form. Noise and light got their own branches ('noise pollution') — dirt generalized to anything unwanted intruding.
🗣 In spoken American English: Its fines are the tax on this verb worldwide.
Register: Formal — environment essential.
conserve /kənˈsɜːrv/ verb B2 Environment
Meaning: To protect and not waste something valuable — water, energy, nature, or money — so it lasts.
Example: Conserve water during the drought.
Another example: Parks conserve wildlife habitats.
Collocations: conserve water · conserve energy · conserve nature
Synonyms: save, protect, preserve
Antonyms: waste, squander
Word family: conservation (n) · conservative (adj — careful/political!)
⚠ Common mistake: Careful with its adjective: CONSERVATIVE in politics means traditional — but at its root sits this same 'protect what exists' idea. Conservationists staff the parks branch.
🗣 In spoken American English: Its signs guard taps and trails on every continent.
Register: Formal — environment essential.
footprint /ˈfʊtprɪnt/ noun B2 Environment
Meaning: The mark left by a foot on the ground; also the measure of the environmental impact of a person or activity (carbon footprint), and an area covered by a service or signal.
Example: Footprints crossed the snow.
Another example: Flying raises your carbon footprint.
Collocations: carbon footprint · footprints in the sand · a small footprint
Synonyms: impact measure, track, trace
Word family: footprints (n pl)
⚠ Common mistake: Walkers leave the literal kind; everyone leaves the carbon kind. Detectives and ecologists both measure humanity by this word now.
🗣 In spoken American English: Its reduction is a lifestyle industry and a school subject.
Register: Neutral — environment essential.
endangered /ɪnˈdeɪndʒərd/ adjective B2 Environment
Meaning: In danger of disappearing completely from the world — used for animals and plants whose numbers are very low.
Example: Pandas were once endangered.
Another example: Endangered turtles nest on this beach.
Collocations: an endangered species · endangered animals · endangered list
Synonyms: at risk, threatened, dying out
Antonyms: common, safe
Word family: endanger (v) · danger (n)
⚠ Common mistake: Its official list (the Red List) grades species from vulnerable to extinct — paperwork standing between animals and oblivion.
🗣 In spoken American English: Zoos run breeding programs as its rescue service.
Register: Formal — environment essential.
extinct /ɪkˈstɪŋkt/ adjective B2 Environment
Meaning: No longer existing anywhere in the world — used for species that have died out completely, and for volcanoes that will not erupt again.
Example: Dinosaurs are extinct.
Another example: The dodo became extinct in 1681.
Collocations: extinct species · become extinct · extinct volcano
Synonyms: gone, dead (species), vanished
Antonyms: alive, endangered
Word family: extinction (n)
⚠ Common mistake: The saddest adjective in biology — no take-backs, no breeding program. Its volcano branch is merciful by comparison ('extinct' there means safely asleep forever).
🗣 In spoken American English: Museums are its libraries; every child asks for the dinosaurs first.
Register: Formal — environment essential.
deforestation /diːˌfɒrɪˈsteɪʃən/ noun B2 Environment
Meaning: The cutting down or burning of large areas of forest, usually for farms, wood, or building land, with serious effects on climate and animals.
Example: Deforestation destroys animal homes.
Another example: The country slowed deforestation.
Collocations: deforestation of · stop deforestation · deforestation rate
Synonyms: forest loss, clearing, logging (part)
Antonyms: reforestation
Word family: deforest (v) · deforested (adj)
⚠ Common mistake: Its cure-word is built by flipping the prefix: REforestation. Satellite photos made its rate measurable tree by tree — nowhere to hide anymore.
🗣 In spoken American English: Its drivers (beef, soy, palm oil) hide in shopping carts worldwide.
Register: Formal — environment essential.
greenhouse /ˈɡriːnhaʊs/ noun B2 Environment
Meaning: A glass building where plants are grown in warm conditions; also relating to the warming of the Earth (greenhouse gases, the greenhouse effect).
Example: Tomatoes grow in the greenhouse.
Another example: Greenhouse gases warm the planet.
Collocations: a greenhouse · greenhouse gases · greenhouse effect
Synonyms: glasshouse, hothouse, warming gases
Word family: greenhouses (n pl)
⚠ Common mistake: The climate sense borrows the building: gases trap heat like glass traps sun. Gardeners love the original; scientists warn with the metaphor.
🗣 In spoken American English: Its effect phrase is in every climate headline written.
Register: Formal — environment essential.
landfill /ˈlændfɪl/ noun B2 Environment
Meaning: A large area of land where a city buries its waste and garbage; also the waste buried there.
Example: Most trash ends up in landfill.
Another example: The landfill is nearly full.
Collocations: in landfill · landfill site · landfill waste
Synonyms: dump, tip, waste site
Word family: landfills (n pl)
⚠ Common mistake: Out of sight, underground, not out of consequence — its gases and leaks are engineering's eternal homework. Recycling exists to shrink its share.
🗣 In spoken American English: Some countries now mine old ones for metals — archaeology of ourselves.
Register: Formal — environment essential.
compost /ˈkɒmpɒst/ noun / verb B2 Environment
Meaning: A mixture of decayed food and garden waste used to make soil richer for plants; to make or use this mixture.
Example: Kitchen scraps go into the compost.
Another example: Compost the leaves this autumn.
Collocations: compost bin · compost heap · make compost
Synonyms: fertilizer, soil food, mulch
Word family: composts (n pl) · composting (n) · compostable (adj)
⚠ Common mistake: Garbage's redemption arc: banana peels become garden gold. Cities now collect it like recycling's second stream.
🗣 In spoken American English: Its rule of thumb: greens + browns + patience.
Register: Neutral — environment staple.
Practice — Environment: Problems & Protection
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