Describe a place you visited that has been affected by pollution: IELTS cue card with sample answer

I’d like to talk about a coastal town called Port Meriden, which I visited a few years ago for a summer holiday. It’s situated along the eastern coastline of my country and was once a thriving fishing village known for its crystalline waters and pristine sandy beaches. However, over the last decade, it has been severely impacted by plastic pollution, which has fundamentally altered its character. During my stay, it was heartbreaking to see the shoreline littered with discarded fishing nets, single-use plastic bottles, and synthetic debris that had washed up from the sea. The primary culprit is the nearby industrial shipping lane coupled with inadequate waste management systems in the local municipalities. As commercial vessels pass through, they often dump waste illegally, and the local tourism boom has put immense pressure on the town’s outdated sewage and refuse disposal infrastructure, leading to significant runoff directly into the bay. Walking along the beach, I felt a deep sense of melancholy rather than the relaxation I had anticipated. It was distressing to observe seagulls picking through piles of refuse and to realise that the vibrant marine ecosystem I had read about was struggling to survive amidst this suffocating layer of human waste. I felt a profound disappointment, not just at the state of the beach, but at the collective negligence that allowed such a picturesque location to deteriorate so rapidly. It really brought home the reality of how our consumer habits are leaving an indelible mark on the natural world, turning a sanctuary into a cautionary tale of environmental degradation.