Captain Charles Moore on the seas of plastic

譯者: Feiman Luk 審譯者: Wang-Ju Tsai

Let's talk trash.

讓我們來談談垃圾

You know, we had to be taught

我們被教導要將在大蕭條和在二次大戰時期

to renounce the powerful conservation ethic

我們被教導要將在大蕭條和在二次大戰時期

we developed during the Great Depression and World War II.

所建立的保守消費意識全都拋諸腦後

After the war, we needed to direct our enormous production capacity

在戰爭後，我們需要把戰時大量的生產力

toward creation of products for peacetime.

轉移到的和平時期貨物的生產上

Life Magazine helped in this effort

<<生活雜誌>>就介紹了這種"用完就丢"的生活方式

by announcing the introduction of throwaways

聲稱這樣可以讓家庭主婦甩下洗滌碗碟的擔子

that would liberate the housewife from the drudgery of doing dishes.

這概念在當中起了助推作用

Mental note to the liberators:

採取這種生活方式的人必須了解：

throwaway plastics take a lot of space and don't biodegrade.

丟棄的塑膠佔據了大量空間，並且不能被生物分解

Only we humans make waste that nature can't digest.

只有我們人類才能製造出大自然無法分解的廢料

Plastics are also hard to recycle.

特別是塑膠，這是一種很難循環再用的物質

A teacher told me how to express the under-five-percent

一位老師教我以"diddly point squat" (微不足道的小數目)

of plastics recovered in our waste stream.

去形容我們所製造的垃圾中

It's diddly-point-squat.

那不到5%的塑料垃圾回收率

That's the percentage we recycle.

實在少得可憐

Now, melting point has a lot to do with this.

這與塑膠的熔點有密切關係

Plastic is not purified by the re-melting process like glass and metal.

與玻璃和金屬不同，塑膠不能透過再熔化去進行提煉

It begins to melt below the boiling point of water

它在水沸點以下，便會開始熔解

and does not drive off the oily contaminants

像海綿一樣

for which it is a sponge.

它不會吸附油性污染物

Half of each year's 100 billion pounds of thermal plastic pellets

每年回爐生產的1000億顆塑膠小球中

will be made into fast-track trash.

有一半很快會變成垃圾

A large, unruly fraction of our trash

而這些垃圾中的一大部分

will flow downriver to the sea.

會經河流流入大海

Here is the accumulation at Biona Creek next to the L.A. airport.

這是洛杉磯機場附近Biona小灣內垃圾堆積的情況

And here is the flotsam near California State University Long Beach

這是加州州立大學長灘分校附近的漂浮物

and the diesel plant we visited yesterday.

也是我們昨天參觀的淡化水工廠的所在地

In spite of deposit fees,

儘管有飲料瓶有退瓶費

much of this trash leading out to the sea will be plastic beverage bottles.

飲料瓶還是佔了流入海洋塑膠垃圾的絕大多數

We use two million of them in the United States every five minutes,

在美國，每五分鐘我們就使用了兩百萬個飲料瓶

here imaged by TED presenter Chris Jordan,

這張圖片來自TED演講者: 克裏斯•喬丹(Chris Jordan)

who artfully documents mass consumption and zooms in for more detail.

他巧妙地記錄了消費掉的瓶子數目之巨大，這是放大了的細節

Here is a remote island repository for bottles

這個位於下加利福尼亞海域的偏遠海島

off the coast of Baja California.

已經成為塑膠瓶的“儲藏庫”

Isla San Roque is an uninhabited bird rookery

無人居住的聖羅克島是許多鳥類的棲息地

off Baja's sparsely populated central coast.

位於下加州人口稀少的中部海岸

Notice that the bottles here have caps on them.

請注意這些瓶子上都有瓶蓋

Bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate, PET,

由聚對苯二甲酸乙二醇酯(PET)製成的塑膠瓶

will sink in seawater and not make it this far from civilization.

會沉入海裏，不會漂到這麼偏遠的地方

Also, the caps are produced in separate factories

然而，來自其他工廠的瓶蓋

from a different plastic, polypropylene.

由一種稱為聚丙烯的塑膠製成

They will float in seawater,

它們會在海面漂浮

but unfortunately do not get recycled under the bottle bills.

不幸的是，瓶蓋並不在塑膠瓶回收法案的名單上

Let's trace the journey of the millions of caps

讓我們追蹤一下這數以百萬計的瓶蓋

that make it to sea solo.

看看它們是如何漂流到大海的

After a year the ones from Japan are heading straight across the Pacific,

來自日本的瓶蓋以一年的時間橫穿太平洋

while ours get caught in the California current

而我們的瓶蓋則沿著加利福尼亞寒流漂行

and first head down to the latitude of Cabo San Lucas.

直達卡波聖盧卡斯所在的緯度附近

After ten years, a lot of the Japanese caps

10年之後，大部分來自日本的瓶蓋

are in what we call the Eastern Garbage Patch,

漂到所謂的“東洋垃圾場”

while ours litter the Philippines.

而我們扔掉的瓶蓋則充斥了整個菲律賓

After 20 years, we see emerging the debris accumulation zone

20年之後，我們看到在北太平洋環流區

of the North Pacific Gyre.

出現了塑膠碎片堆積帶

It so happens that millions of albatross

在西北夏威夷群島國家保護地的兩個環礁

nesting on Kure and Midway atolls

庫爾環礁和中途島環礁上

in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands National Monument

同樣出現了這樣的情況，數以百萬計的信天翁

forage here and scavenge whatever they can find

在這片海域覓食，吃下找到的一切

for regurgitation to their chicks.

然後再回吐給幼鳥

A four-month old Laysan Albatross chick

這是一隻四個月大的黑背信天翁

died with this in its stomach.

它死的時候，胃裏全是這些東西

Hundreds of thousands of the goose-sized chicks are dying

成千上萬隻如鵝一樣大小的幼鳥正在死亡線上掙扎

with stomachs full of bottle caps and other rubbish,

牠們的胃裏滿是瓶蓋

like cigarette lighters ...

或像打火機之類的其他垃圾

but, mostly bottle caps.

但裡面絕大部分都是瓶蓋

Sadly, their parents mistake bottle caps for food

不幸的是，它們的父母誤以為

tossing about in the ocean surface.

在海面漂浮的瓶蓋是食物

The retainer rings for the caps

而瓶蓋下的扣環

also have consequences for aquatic animals.

也對海洋生物的性命造死威脅

This is Mae West,

這只龜名叫Mae West

still alive at a zookeeper's home in New Orleans.

牠現在仍在新奧爾良一位動物園管理員的家中生活

I wanted to see what my home town of Long Beach was contributing to the problem,

我想知道我的家鄉—長灘市，為這個問題作出了什麼貢獻

so on Coastal Clean-Up Day in 2005

因此，在2005年的海岸清理日

I went to the Long Beach Peninsula, at the east end of our long beach.

我到了長灘市最東邊的長灘半島

We cleaned up the swaths of beach shown.

我們一同清理了這個長而寬的沙灘的垃圾

I offered five cents each for bottle caps.

人們每撿起一個瓶蓋，我就付給5分

I got plenty of takers.

很多人加入了這個行動

Here are the 1,100 bottle caps they collected.

這就是他們搜集到的1100個瓶蓋

I thought I would spend 20 bucks.

我以為那天我只會花20美元左右

That day I ended up spending nearly 60.

而最後我卻花了近60美元

I separated them by color

我按照顏色將它們分類

and put them on display the next Earth Day

並在接下來的地球日

at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro.

在聖佩德羅的卡布裏奧水族館進行展覽

Governor Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria stopped by to discuss the display.

州長阿諾.史瓦辛格和他的妻子瑪利亞路過，並與我們討論關於這次的展覽

In spite of my "girly man" hat, crocheted from plastic shopping bags,

雖然我戴上了一頂女孩子氣、以膠袋編織而成的帽子

they shook my hand. (Laughter)

他們還是跟我握了手

I showed him and Maria a zooplankton trawl

我帶他和瑪麗亞去看在夏威夷北部的渦流處的

from the gyre north of Hawaii

一個浮游生物拖網

with more plastic than plankton.

裡面的塑膠含量比浮游生物還多

Here's what our trawl samples from the plastic soup our ocean has become look like.

這就是拖網在那逐漸變成塑膠湯的海洋中拖到的樣本

Trawling a zooplankton net on the surface for a mile

用浮游生物拖網在海面拖動一英里

produces samples like this.

得到的樣品就像這個

And this.

和這個

Now, when the debris washes up on the beaches of Hawaii

當塑膠碎片沖上夏威夷沙灘的時候

it looks like this.

看起來是這樣的

And this particular beach is Kailua Beach,

而這就是凱魯亞沙灘

the beach where our president and his family vacationed before moving to Washington.

我們的總統一家人在前往華盛頓之前就在那兒度假

Now, how do we analyze samples like this one

那麼，我們是如何通過這些樣品

that contain more plastic than plankton?

得到塑膠含量比浮游生物還多的結論？

We sort the plastic fragments into different size classes,

我們按體積大小將塑膠碎片分成不同類別

from five millimeters to one-third of a millimeter.

從5毫米到1/3毫米

Small bits of plastic concentrate persistent organic pollutants

少量塑膠上的持續性有機污染物濃度

up to a million times their levels in the surrounding seawater.

比周圍的海水高出一百萬倍

We wanted to see if the most common fish in the deep ocean,

我們想知道，深海裏最普通的魚類

at the base of the food chain,

位於食物鏈底部

was ingesting these poison pills.

是否也會吞下這些毒藥

We did hundreds of necropsies,

我們做了數百次“屍體檢驗”

and over a third had polluted plastic fragments in their stomachs.

在超過三分之一的魚胃裡都發現了塑膠碎片

The record-holder, only two-and-a-half inches long,

最高的記錄來自一條僅2.5英寸的小魚

had 84 pieces in its tiny stomach.

它小小的胃裏有84塊塑膠碎片

Now, you can buy certified organic produce.

你可以買到經過認證的有機製品

But no fishmonger on Earth

但沒有一個魚販

can sell you a certified organic wild-caught fish.

能賣你一條經過有機認證和野生捕捉的魚

This is the legacy we are leaving to future generations.

這就是我們留給後代的遺產

The throwaway society cannot be contained --

這個無法控制，“用完就扔”的社會

it has gone global.

已經成為全球性問題

We simply cannot store and maintain or recycle all our stuff.

我們實在沒辦法儲存或回收所有生產的東西

We have to throw it away.

我們只能把它們扔掉

Now, the market can do a lot for us,

現在，透過市場機能我們能辦到很多事情

but it can't fix the natural system in the ocean we've broken.

然而，市場卻不能修補這個已被破壞的海洋生態系統

All the king's horses and all the king's men ...

即使投入所有的人力物力

will never gather up all the plastic and put the ocean back together again.

我們也永遠無法把海洋裏所有的塑膠垃圾清理乾淨

Narrator (Video): The levels are increasing,

視頻：情況正在惡化

the amount of packaging is increasing,

塑膠包裝的數量不斷增加

the "throwaway" concept of living is proliferating,

“用完就扔”的生活方式大行其道

and it's showing up in the ocean.

使這威脅已經波及了海洋

Anchor: He offers no hope of cleaning it up.

主持人：他對把海洋清理乾淨感到希望渺茫

Straining the ocean for plastic

把塑膠從海水中過濾出來的成本

would be beyond the budget of any country

將超出任何國家的預算

and it might kill untold amounts of sea life in the process.

過程中也可能導致海洋生物的死亡

The solution, Moore says, is to stop the plastic at its source:

摩爾說：「要解決的話就要從塑膠的來源著手

stop it on land before it falls in the ocean.

在塑膠流入海洋前便要把它攬下來。」

And in a plastic-wrapped and packaged world,

但身處於一個被塑膠包圍的世界裡

he doesn't hold out much hope for that, either.

他對此並不抱太大希望

This is Brian Rooney for Nightline,

布萊恩•魯尼為《夜線》所做的報導

in Long Beach, California.

加利福尼亞州長灘市

Charles Moore: Thank you.

查理斯•摩爾：謝謝你們。