You know, we had to be taught

你知道，我們必須被教導

to renounce the powerful conservation ethic

放棄強大的保護倫理

we developed during the Great Depression and World War II.

我們在大蕭條和第二次世界大戰期間發展起來的。

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

戰爭結束後，我們需要引導我們巨大的生產能力。

toward creation of products for peacetime.

朝著為和平時期創造產品的方向發展。

Life Magazine helped in this effort

生活雜誌在這方面提供了幫助

by announcing the introduction of throwaways

宣佈推出拋棄式

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

這將使家庭主婦從洗碗的苦差事中解放出來。

Mental note to the liberators:

給解放軍的精神提示。

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

扔掉的塑膠佔據了很多空間，而且不生物降解。

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

只有我們人類製造的廢物，自然無法消化。

Plastics are also hard to recycle.

塑膠也很難回收。

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

一位老師告訴我，如何表達五分之一以下的情況

of plastics recovered in our waste stream.

我們的廢物流中回收的塑膠比例。

It's diddly point squat.

它'的diddly點蹲。

That's the percentage we recycle.

這'就是我們回收的比例。

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

現在，熔點與此有很大關係。

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

塑膠不像玻璃和金屬那樣經過再熔鍊過程淨化。

It begins to melt below the boiling point of water

它在水的沸點以下開始融化。

and does not drive off oily contaminants

並且不會驅除油性汙染物。

for which it is a sponge.

對其來說，它是一塊海綿。

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

每年的1000億點熱塑料顆粒中，有一半是熱塑料顆粒。

will be made into fast-track trash.

將會被做成快車道垃圾。

A large, unruly fraction of our trash

在我們的垃圾中，有很大一部分是不守規矩的。

will flow down rivers to the sea.

會順著河流流向大海。

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

這裡是機場旁邊的比昂納溪的積澱。

And here is the flotsam near California State University Long Beach

這裡是加州州立大學長灘分校附近的碎屑

and the de-sal plant we visited yesterday.

以及我們昨天參觀的除鹽廠。

In spite of deposit fees,

儘管有存款費用。

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

這些通向大海的垃圾大部分都是塑膠飲料瓶。

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

在美國，我們每5分鐘就會使用200萬個。

here imaged by TED presenter Chris Jordan

此處為TED主講人克里斯-喬丹的圖片。

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

他藝術地記錄了大眾消費，並放大了更多的細節。

Here is a remote island repository for bottles

這裡是一個偏遠島嶼的瓶子存放處。

off the coast of Baja California.

在下加利福尼亞州海岸外。

Isla San Roque is an uninhabited bird rookery

聖羅克島是一個無人居住的鳥類棲息地。

off Baja's sparsely-populated central coast.

靠近巴哈'人煙稀少的中央海岸。

Notice that the bottles here have caps on them.

注意，這裡的瓶子是有蓋子的。

Bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate, PET,

聚對苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET）製成的瓶子。

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

會在海水中沉沒，不會離文明這麼遠。

Also, the caps are produced in separate factories

另外，瓶蓋是在不同的工廠生產的

from a different plastic, polypropylene.

由另一種塑膠--聚丙烯製成。

They will float in seawater,

它們會漂浮在海水中。

but unfortunately do not get recycled under the bottle bills.

但遺憾的是沒有得到回收的瓶鈔下。

Let's trace the journey of the millions of caps

讓我們來追尋百萬蓋帽的歷程吧。

that make it to sea solo.

獨自出海的。

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

一年後，日本的那些人就直奔太平洋彼岸。

while ours get caught in the California current

而我們的則被捲入加州的潮流中

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

並首先下到卡波聖盧卡斯的緯度。

After ten years, a lot of the Japanese caps

10年後，很多日本人的帽子

are in what we call the Eastern Garbage Patch,

是在我們所說的東部垃圾區。

while ours litter the Philippines.

而我們的人卻遍佈菲律賓。

After 20 years, we see emerging the debris accumulation zone

20年後，我們看到了新興的碎片堆積區。

of the North Pacific Gyre.

北太平洋環流的。

It so happens that millions of albatross

恰好，數百萬只信天翁

nesting on Kure and Midway atolls

在庫爾島和中途島築巢。

in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands National Monument

在西北夏威夷群島國家紀念碑中

forage here and scavenge whatever they can find

捕風捉影

for regurgitation to their chicks.

用於反芻給它們的小雞。

A four-month old Laysan Albatross chick

四個月大的萊山信天翁雛鳥。

died with this in its stomach.

肚子裡有這個，就死了。

Hundreds of thousands of the goose-sized chicks are dying

數十萬只鵝大的小雞正在死去。

with stomachs full of bottle caps and other rubbish

肚子裡裝滿了瓶蓋和其他垃圾。

like cigarette lighters ...

像打火機...

but, mostly bottle caps.

但，大多是瓶蓋。

Sadly, their parents mistake bottle caps for food

可悲的是，他們的父母把瓶蓋當成了食物。

tossing about in the ocean surface.

在海面上翻騰。

The retainer rings for the caps

帽的固定環

also have consequences for aquatic animals.

對水生動物也有影響。

This is Mae West,

我是梅-韋斯特

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

還活在新奧爾良的一個動物園管理員'的家中。

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

我想看看我的家鄉長灘鎮是什麼原因導致了這個問題。

so on Coastal Clean-Up Day in 2005

所以在2005年的海岸清潔日上

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

我去了我們長灘半島的東端。

We cleaned up the swaths of beach shown.

我們清理了圖示的大片海灘。

I offered five cents each for bottle caps.

我出了五分錢一個瓶蓋的價格。

I got plenty of takers.

我有很多人在等我

Here are the 1,100 bottle caps they collected.

這是他們收集的1100個瓶蓋。

I thought I would spend 20 bucks.

我以為我會花20塊錢。

That day I ended up spending nearly 60.

那天，我最終花了近60。

I separated them by color

我把它們按顏色分開

and put them on display the next Earth Day

並在下一個地球日將它們展示出來

at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pidro.

在聖皮德羅的卡布裡洛海洋水族館。

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

州長施瓦辛格和他的妻子瑪麗亞來到這裡討論展覽。

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

儘管我的"女漢子"帽子，用塑膠購物袋鉤織而成。

they shook my hand.

他們和我握手。

I showed him and Maria a zooplankton trawl

我給他和瑪麗亞看了一個浮游動物拖網。

from the gyre north of Hawaii

從夏威夷以北的海口

with more plastic than plankton.

與塑膠比浮游生物更多。

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

這裡'是我們的拖網樣品從塑膠湯我們的海洋已經成為像。

Trawling a zooplankton net on the surface for a mile

在海面上拖動浮游動物網一英里。

produces samples like this.

產生這樣的樣本。

And this.

還有這個

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

現在，當這些碎片被衝上夏威夷的海灘時

it looks like this.

它看起來像這樣。

And this particular beach is Kailua Beach,

而這個特別的海灘就是凱路亞海灘。

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

我們的總統和他的家人在搬到華盛頓前度假的海灘。

Now, how do we analyze samples like this one

現在，我們如何分析像這樣的樣本？

that contain more plastic than plankton?

含有比浮游生物更多的塑膠?

We sort the plastic fragments into different size classes

我們將塑膠碎片分為不同的尺寸等級。

from five millimeters to one-third of a millimeter.

從五毫米到三分之一毫米。

Small bits of plastic concentrate persistent organic pollutants

小塊塑膠集中了持久性有機汙染物

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

高達其在周圍海水中含量的百萬倍。

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

我們想看看深海中最常見的魚是否。

at the base of the food chain,

處於食物鏈的底部。

was ingesting these poison pills.

是攝取這些毒丸。

We did hundreds of necropsies,

我們做了幾百個屍體解剖。

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

而超過三分之一的人肚子裡有被汙染的塑膠碎片。

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

記錄者，只有兩寸半長。

had 84 pieces in its tiny stomach.

在它小小的胃裡有84塊。

Now, you can buy certified organic produce.

現在，你可以買到經過認證的有機農產品。

But no fish monger on Earth

但地球上沒有魚販子

can sell you a certified organic wild-caught fish.

可以賣給你一條經過認證的有機野生捕撈魚。

This is the legacy we are leaving to future generations.

這是我們留給後代的遺產。

The throwaway society cannot be contained,

扔掉的社會是無法遏制的。

it has gone global.

它已經走向了全球。

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

我們根本不可能把所有的東西都儲存和維護或回收。

We have to throw it away.

我們必須把它扔掉。

Now, the market can do a lot for us,

現在，市場可以為我們做很多事情。

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

但它不能修復海洋中的自然系統 我們已經打破了。

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

所有國王的馬和所有國王的人......。

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

將永遠不會收集所有的塑膠，並把海洋重新組合起來。

Video: The levels are increasing,

視頻。水準在不斷提高。

the amount of packaging is increasing,

包裝的數量在增加。

the throwaway concept of living is proliferating,

扔掉的生活概念正在擴散。

and it's showing up in the ocean.

它出現在海洋中。

Anchor: He offers no hope of cleaning it up.

主播：他沒有提出清理的希望。

Straining the ocean for plastic

為塑膠而使海洋緊張

would be beyond the budget of any country

任何國家的預算都無法承受

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

而且在這個過程中可能會殺死數不清的海洋生物。

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

摩爾說，解決的辦法是從源頭上制止塑膠。

stop it on land before it falls in the ocean.

阻止它在陸地上落入海洋之前。

And in a plastic-wrapped and packaged world,

而在一個塑料包裝和包裝的世界裡。

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

他也不抱太大希望。

This is Brian Rooney for Nightline,

我是布萊恩-魯尼，為夜線報道。

in Long Beach, California.

在加州長灘。

Charles Moore: Thank you.

查爾斯-摩爾：謝謝你。