TED2009
Charles Moore: Seas of plastic
查尔斯·摩尔：塑料充斥的海洋
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查尔斯·摩尔船长是Algalita海洋研究基金会的创始人，他第一次发现了大太平洋垃圾带——一片无边无际漂浮着塑料垃圾的海域。现在，他为我们讲述大海面临的日益严重的塑料碎片污染问题。
Charles Moore - Oceanographer
Charles Moore is founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. He captains the foundation's research vessel, the Alguita, documenting the great expanses of plastic waste that now litter our oceans. Full bio
Charles Moore is founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. He captains the foundation's research vessel, the Alguita, documenting the great expanses of plastic waste that now litter our oceans. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
Let's talk trash.
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让我们来说说垃圾吧
00:14
You know, we had to be taught
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我们曾经被告知
00:17
to renounce the powerful conservation ethic
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要放弃在大萧条时期和二战时建立起来的
00:20
we developed during the Great Depression and World War II.
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强有力的环境保护道德意识
00:23
After the war, we needed to direct our enormous production capacity
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战争之后，我们需要把大量的生产力
00:26
toward creation of products for peacetime.
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转移到和平时期的生产上来
00:29
Life Magazine helped in this effort
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《生活杂志》在其中起了助推作用
00:32
by announcing the introduction of throwaways
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宣称用完就丢的生活方式
00:35
that would liberate the housewife from the drudgery of doing dishes.
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以此将家庭主妇从洗涤碗碟的杂务中解放出来
00:38
Mental note to the liberators:
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但这些被解放的人们应该铭记在心的是：
00:40
throwaway plastics take a lot of space and don't biodegrade.
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丢弃塑料占据了大量空间且不能生物降解
00:43
Only we humans make waste that nature can't digest.
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只有我们人类才能制造出大自然不能消化的废物
00:48
Plastics are also hard to recycle.
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塑料同样也很难回收利用
00:51
A teacher told me how to express the under-five-percent
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一位老师告诉我，如果要形容
00:54
of plastics recovered in our waste stream.
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我们排放废物中不到5%的塑料垃圾回收率的话
00:57
It's diddly-point-squat.
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可以用“diddle point squat”（无足轻重的小数目）
01:00
That's the percentage we recycle.
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而这就是塑料可怜的回收率
01:06
Now, melting point has a lot to do with this.
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这与塑料的熔点有很大关系
01:09
Plastic is not purified by the re-melting process like glass and metal.
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与玻璃和金属不同，塑料不能通过再熔化进行提炼
01:12
It begins to melt below the boiling point of water
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在水沸点以下塑料便开始熔化
01:15
and does not drive off the oily contaminants
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而且塑料会像海绵一样
01:18
for which it is a sponge.
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吸附油性污染物
01:21
Half of each year's 100 billion pounds of thermal plastic pellets
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每年回炉生产的1000亿颗塑料小球中
01:24
will be made into fast-track trash.
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有一半会很快又变成垃圾
01:27
A large, unruly fraction of our trash
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这些垃圾中的一大部分
01:30
will flow downriver to the sea.
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将不可避免地经河流流入大海
01:33
Here is the accumulation at Biona Creek next to the L.A. airport.
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这是洛杉矶机场附近Biona小湾内垃圾堆积的景象
01:36
And here is the flotsam near California State University Long Beach
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这是加州州立大学长滩分校附近的漂浮物
01:41
and the diesel plant we visited yesterday.
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也是我们昨天参观的淡化水工厂所在地
01:43
In spite of deposit fees,
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尽管有回收报酬
01:45
much of this trash leading out to the sea will be plastic beverage bottles.
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但流向海洋的塑料垃圾绝大多数还是饮料瓶
01:48
We use two million of them in the United States every five minutes,
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在美国，每五分钟我们就使用了两百万个饮料瓶
01:52
here imaged by TED presenter Chris Jordan,
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这张图片来自TED演讲者克里斯·乔丹
01:55
who artfully documents mass consumption and zooms in for more detail.
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他巧妙地记录了我们消费掉的瓶子数目是多么巨大，这是放大后的细节
02:01
Here is a remote island repository for bottles
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这个位于下加利福尼亚海域的偏远海岛
02:05
off the coast of Baja California.
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已经成为塑料瓶的“储藏库”
02:08
Isla San Roque is an uninhabited bird rookery
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无人居住的圣罗克岛是许多鸟类的栖息地
02:10
off Baja's sparsely populated central coast.
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位于下加州人口稀少的中部海岸
02:12
Notice that the bottles here have caps on them.
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请注意这些瓶子上都有瓶盖
02:15
Bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate, PET,
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塑料瓶由聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET）制成
02:19
will sink in seawater and not make it this far from civilization.
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会沉入海水而不会漂到这么偏远的地方
02:22
Also, the caps are produced in separate factories
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然而，瓶盖来自另一些的工厂
02:25
from a different plastic, polypropylene.
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由一种称为聚丙烯的塑料制成
02:28
They will float in seawater,
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它们会漂浮在海面上
02:30
but unfortunately do not get recycled under the bottle bills.
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不幸的是，瓶盖并不在退瓶法的回收名单中
02:34
Let's trace the journey of the millions of caps
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让我们追踪这数以百万计的瓶盖
02:37
that make it to sea solo.
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看它们是如何漂向大海的
02:39
After a year the ones from Japan are heading straight across the Pacific,
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一年时间里，来自日本的瓶盖横穿太平洋
02:42
while ours get caught in the California current
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我们的瓶盖则沿着加利福尼亚寒流漂行
02:45
and first head down to the latitude of Cabo San Lucas.
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起先到达的是卡波圣卢卡斯所在的纬度附近
02:48
After ten years, a lot of the Japanese caps
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10年之后，大多数来自日本的瓶盖
02:51
are in what we call the Eastern Garbage Patch,
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漂到了所谓的“东洋垃圾场”
02:53
while ours litter the Philippines.
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而我们扔掉的瓶盖则堆积到了菲律宾
02:55
After 20 years, we see emerging the debris accumulation zone
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20年之后，我们看到在北太平洋环流区
02:58
of the North Pacific Gyre.
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出现了塑料碎片堆积带
03:01
It so happens that millions of albatross
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在西北夏威夷群岛国家保护地的两个环礁
03:03
nesting on Kure and Midway atolls
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库尔环礁和中途岛环礁上
03:05
in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands National Monument
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生活着数以百万计的信天翁
03:08
forage here and scavenge whatever they can find
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它们在这片海域觅食，吃下能找到的所有一切
03:11
for regurgitation to their chicks.
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然后再回吐给幼鸟
03:13
A four-month old Laysan Albatross chick
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这是一只四个月大的黑背信天翁幼鸟
03:16
died with this in its stomach.
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它死的时候，胃里是这些东西
03:19
Hundreds of thousands of the goose-sized chicks are dying
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成千上万只鹅体形大小的幼鸟正在死亡线上挣扎
03:24
with stomachs full of bottle caps and other rubbish,
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它们的胃里满是瓶盖和其他垃圾
03:27
like cigarette lighters ...
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如打火机……
03:30
but, mostly bottle caps.
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但绝大部分是瓶盖
03:33
Sadly, their parents mistake bottle caps for food
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不幸的是，它们的父母将漂在大海表面的瓶盖
03:36
tossing about in the ocean surface.
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误认为是食物
03:39
The retainer rings for the caps
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瓶盖下的扣环
03:41
also have consequences for aquatic animals.
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也会给水生动物带来威胁
03:44
This is Mae West,
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这只龟名叫Mae West（意为救生背心）
03:46
still alive at a zookeeper's home in New Orleans.
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现在仍生活在新奥尔良一位动物园管理员的家中
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I wanted to see what my home town of Long Beach was contributing to the problem,
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我想看看家乡长滩对这一问题作出的努力
03:53
so on Coastal Clean-Up Day in 2005
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因此，2005年的海岸清理日
03:56
I went to the Long Beach Peninsula, at the east end of our long beach.
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我来到我们长滩市最东边的长滩半岛
03:59
We cleaned up the swaths of beach shown.
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我们清理了这片狭长的沙滩
04:02
I offered five cents each for bottle caps.
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每搜集一个瓶盖我付给5美分
04:05
I got plenty of takers.
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许多人加入了行列
04:07
Here are the 1,100 bottle caps they collected.
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这就是他们搜集的1100个瓶盖
04:10
I thought I would spend 20 bucks.
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我想我要花上20美元
04:13
That day I ended up spending nearly 60.
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而那天到最后我花了接近60美元
04:16
I separated them by color
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我根据颜色将它们分类
04:18
and put them on display the next Earth Day
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并在接下来的地球日
04:20
at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro.
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在圣佩德罗的卡布里奥水族馆进行展览
04:22
Governor Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria stopped by to discuss the display.
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施瓦辛格州长和妻子玛丽亚路过并与我们讨论了这次展览
04:26
In spite of my "girly man" hat, crocheted from plastic shopping bags,
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尽管我戴着用塑料购物袋编织成的女里女气的帽子
04:29
they shook my hand. (Laughter)
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他们还是与我握了手
04:33
I showed him and Maria a zooplankton trawl
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我给他和玛丽亚看了个浮游动物拖网
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from the gyre north of Hawaii
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在夏威夷北部的涡流处
04:39
with more plastic than plankton.
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塑料的量比浮游生物还多
04:41
Here's what our trawl samples from the plastic soup our ocean has become look like.
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这就是在我们逐渐变成塑料汤的海洋中拖网得到的样品
04:46
Trawling a zooplankton net on the surface for a mile
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在海面用浮游动物拖网拖动一英里
04:49
produces samples like this.
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得到的样品就像这个
04:52
And this.
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和这个
04:55
Now, when the debris washes up on the beaches of Hawaii
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当塑料碎片冲上夏威夷沙滩的时候
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it looks like this.
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看起来是这样的
05:00
And this particular beach is Kailua Beach,
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而这里就是凯鲁亚沙滩
05:02
the beach where our president and his family vacationed before moving to Washington.
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我们的总统一家在前往华盛顿之前度假的那个沙滩
05:05
Now, how do we analyze samples like this one
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那么，我们是如何通过这些样品
05:08
that contain more plastic than plankton?
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分析得出塑料比浮游生物还多的结论呢？
05:11
We sort the plastic fragments into different size classes,
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我们将塑料碎片按体积大小分成不同类别
05:14
from five millimeters to one-third of a millimeter.
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从5毫米到1/3毫米
05:17
Small bits of plastic concentrate persistent organic pollutants
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少量塑料上浓缩的持续性有机污染物浓度
05:21
up to a million times their levels in the surrounding seawater.
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比周围海水高出一百万倍
05:25
We wanted to see if the most common fish in the deep ocean,
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我们想知道，深海里最普通的鱼类
05:28
at the base of the food chain,
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位于食物链底部
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was ingesting these poison pills.
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是否也会吞下这些毒药丸
05:32
We did hundreds of necropsies,
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我们做了数百例“尸体检验”
05:35
and over a third had polluted plastic fragments in their stomachs.
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在超过三分之一的鱼体胃里面都发现了塑料碎片
05:38
The record-holder, only two-and-a-half inches long,
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最高的记录来自一条仅2.5英寸的小鱼
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had 84 pieces in its tiny stomach.
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它小小的胃里有84块塑料碎片
05:44
Now, you can buy certified organic produce.
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你可以买到经过认证的有机制品
05:47
But no fishmonger on Earth
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但没有一个鱼贩
05:50
can sell you a certified organic wild-caught fish.
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能卖给你一条经过认证的有机的，野生捕捉的鱼
05:55
This is the legacy we are leaving to future generations.
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这就是我们为子孙后代留下的遗产
06:00
The throwaway society cannot be contained --
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一个无法控制的“用完就扔”的社会
06:03
it has gone global.
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已经成为全球问题
06:06
We simply cannot store and maintain or recycle all our stuff.
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我们实在没办法储存或回收所有生产的东西
06:09
We have to throw it away.
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我们必须把它们扔掉
06:11
Now, the market can do a lot for us,
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现在，我们能利用市场做很多事情
06:14
but it can't fix the natural system in the ocean we've broken.
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但市场不能修补我们已经破坏了的海洋自然系统
06:17
All the king's horses and all the king's men ...
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即使投入所有的人力物力
06:20
will never gather up all the plastic and put the ocean back together again.
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也永远无法把海洋里所有的塑料垃圾清理干净
06:26
Narrator (Video): The levels are increasing,
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视频：情况正在恶化
06:28
the amount of packaging is increasing,
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塑料包装的数量不断增加
06:30
the "throwaway" concept of living is proliferating,
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“用完就扔”的生活方式大行其道
06:33
and it's showing up in the ocean.
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危害已经波及到了海洋
06:36
Anchor: He offers no hope of cleaning it up.
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主持人：他对把海洋清理干净感到希望渺茫
06:39
Straining the ocean for plastic
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把塑料从海水中过滤出来的成本
06:42
would be beyond the budget of any country
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将超出任何国家的预算
06:45
and it might kill untold amounts of sea life in the process.
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过程中也可能导致海洋生物的死亡
06:48
The solution, Moore says, is to stop the plastic at its source:
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摩尔说，解决的方法要从塑料的来源着手
06:51
stop it on land before it falls in the ocean.
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将塑料控制在陆地上，阻止其流入海洋
06:58
And in a plastic-wrapped and packaged world,
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而身处一个被塑料袋和塑料包装包围的世界
07:01
he doesn't hold out much hope for that, either.
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他对此也不抱太大希望
07:04
This is Brian Rooney for Nightline,
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这是布莱恩·鲁尼的《夜线》节目
07:06
in Long Beach, California.
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发自加利福尼亚长滩市
07:12
Charles Moore: Thank you.
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查尔斯·摩尔：谢谢。
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Charles Moore - OceanographerCharles Moore is founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. He captains the foundation's research vessel, the Alguita, documenting the great expanses of plastic waste that now litter our oceans.
Why you should listen
A yachting competition across the Pacific led veteran seafarer Charles Moore to discover what some have since deemed the world's largest "landfill" -- actually a huge water-bound swath of floating plastic garbage the size of two Texases. Trapped in an enormous slow whirlpool called the Pacific Gyre, a mostly stagnant, plankton-rich seascape spun of massive competing air currents, this Great Pacific Garbage Patch in some places outweighs even the surface waters' biomass six-to-one.
Moore said after his return voyage, "There were shampoo caps and soap bottles and plastic bags and fishing floats as far as I could see. Here I was in the middle of the ocean, and there was nowhere I could go to avoid the plastic."
Since his discovery, Moore has been analyzing the giant litter patch and its disastrous effects on ocean life. Through the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, he hopes to raise awareness about the problem and find ways to restrict its growth. He's now leading several expeditions to sample plastic fragments across thousands of miles of the Pacific.
Charles Moore | Speaker | TED.com