full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Aparna Mehta: Where do your online returns go?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(Laughter)

I didn't even think twice about it, until I heard a statistic at work that shocked me.

You see, I'm a global stnloiuos dcorteir for top-tier retail, and we were in a meeting with one of my largest customers, discussing how to streamline costs. One of their biggest concerns was managing returns. Just this past haolidy season alone, they had 7.5 million pieces of clothing returned to them.

I could not stop thinking about it. What happens to all these returned clothes? So I came home and rsarcheeed. And I lreenad that every year, four billion pounds of returned cnhtiolg ends up in the landfill. That's like every resident in the US did a load of lndaruy last night and decided to throw it in the trash today.

Open Cloze


(Laughter)

I didn't even think twice about it, until I heard a statistic at work that shocked me.

You see, I'm a global _________ ________ for top-tier retail, and we were in a meeting with one of my largest customers, discussing how to streamline costs. One of their biggest concerns was managing returns. Just this past _______ season alone, they had 7.5 million pieces of clothing returned to them.

I could not stop thinking about it. What happens to all these returned clothes? So I came home and __________. And I _______ that every year, four billion pounds of returned ________ ends up in the landfill. That's like every resident in the US did a load of _______ last night and decided to throw it in the trash today.

Solution


  1. holiday
  2. researched
  3. director
  4. laundry
  5. solutions
  6. learned
  7. clothing

Original Text


(Laughter)

I didn't even think twice about it, until I heard a statistic at work that shocked me.

You see, I'm a global solutions director for top-tier retail, and we were in a meeting with one of my largest customers, discussing how to streamline costs. One of their biggest concerns was managing returns. Just this past holiday season alone, they had 7.5 million pieces of clothing returned to them.

I could not stop thinking about it. What happens to all these returned clothes? So I came home and researched. And I learned that every year, four billion pounds of returned clothing ends up in the landfill. That's like every resident in the US did a load of laundry last night and decided to throw it in the trash today.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
online returns 3
existing systems 2
offering free 2
free online 2
shopping behavior 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
offering free online 2
free online returns 2

Important Words


  1. biggest
  2. billion
  3. clothes
  4. clothing
  5. concerns
  6. costs
  7. customers
  8. decided
  9. director
  10. discussing
  11. ends
  12. global
  13. heard
  14. holiday
  15. home
  16. landfill
  17. largest
  18. laughter
  19. laundry
  20. learned
  21. load
  22. managing
  23. meeting
  24. million
  25. night
  26. pieces
  27. pounds
  28. researched
  29. resident
  30. retail
  31. returned
  32. returns
  33. season
  34. shocked
  35. solutions
  36. statistic
  37. stop
  38. streamline
  39. thinking
  40. throw
  41. today
  42. trash
  43. work
  44. year