2020-08-13 The worldwide plastic problem 遍及全球的塑料污染问题

本集内容

The worldwide plastic problem 遍及全球的塑料污染问题

学习要点

有关 “size（规模）” 的词汇

边看边答

How many people in the global south have no access to formal waste collection?

文字稿

It is everywhere because it’s almost endlessly useful. And when it’s thrown away, if plastic finds its way into a plant like this, a lot of it can be made into something useful all over again.

塑料无处不在，因为它的用途几乎是无穷无尽的。当塑料被丢弃后，如果被运到了像这样的废物处理厂，大量的塑料垃圾就可以被重新制成有用的东西。

But every year more and more plastic waste ends up here. And a global team of scientists has now tracked the production and disposal of plastic all around the world and used that information to forecast the scale of our plastic pollution problem for the next 20 years.

但每年都有越来越多的塑料垃圾流入海洋。一支由多国科学家组成的团队现已追踪了世界各地塑料的生产和处理情况，并用这些信息预测了未来20年塑料污染问题的严重性。

Dr Costas Velis, University of Leeds
If you were to count all together all the plastic waste that is going to be released into the environment both on land and reaching the seas, these would be the staggering number of 1.3 billion tonnes of plastic.

科斯塔斯·韦利斯博士     利兹大学
“如果你把将排放到陆地和海洋环境中的所有塑料垃圾都算上，就会得出13亿吨塑料垃圾的惊人数字。”

Victoria Gill, BBC science correspondent1.3 billion tonnes is so big of a number it’s almost unimaginable. How can you even visualise how much waste that is?

维多莉娅·吉尔     BBC科学通讯员
“13亿吨是一个大得几乎难以想象的数字。人们怎样才能想象这到底是多少塑料垃圾呢？”

Dr Costas Velis, University of LeedsIf you were to spread these on a thin layer of land, it would be 1.5 times the size of the UK.

科斯塔斯·韦利斯博士     利兹大学
“如果你把这些塑料垃圾薄薄地铺在平地上，它的总面积相当于英国领土面积的1.5倍。”

Household waste, the scientists say, is by far the biggest source of all this pollution. They calculated that every year 30 million tonnes is dumped on land; nearly 50 million tonnes is burned out in the open, and that’s in addition to the 10 million tonnes that finds its way into our oceans.

科学家们表示，目前，生活垃圾是塑料污染的最大来源。他们计算出，每年有3000万吨塑料被倾倒在陆地上，近5000万吨在露天被焚烧，此外还有1000万吨流入海洋。

Many of us might do our bit with reusable water bottles and coffee cups. But there’s an estimated two billion people in the global south who have no access to any formal waste collection – they’re simply left to work out what to do with all their rubbish.

我们中的许多人也许会尽一己之力，用可重复使用的水瓶和咖啡杯。但据估算，在全球南方的发展中国家，有20亿人没有任何规范的垃圾收集渠道，他们只能自己想办法处理所有的垃圾。

Providing protection and safe employment for workers in low-income countries who collect and sort all of that waste will be just as important globally as reducing the production of single-use plastic. And while these new figures are daunting, the researchers say that recognising the source and the scale of this problem is the first step in stemming the worldwide tide of plastic pollution.

在全球范围内，为低收入国家收集和分类垃圾的劳动者们提供保护和安全就业环境，将与减少一次性塑料的生产同等重要。尽管这些新数据看起来令人生畏，但研究人员表示，认识到塑料污染问题的根源和规模是遏制全球塑料污染浪潮的第一步。

词汇

scale 规模

staggering 惊人的

unimaginable 难以想象的

estimated 经估算得出的

daunting 令人生畏的

问题答案

Two billion people in the global south have no access to formal waste collection.