I'm a visual artist, and I'm also one of the co-founders of the Plastic Pollution Coalition. I've been working with plastic bags, which I cut up and sew back together as my primary material for my artwork for the last 20 years. I turn them into two and three-dimensional pieces and sculptures and installations. Upon working with the plastic, after about the first eight years, some of my work started to fissure and break down into smaller little bits of plastic. And I thought, "Great. It's ephemeral just like us."
我是視覺藝術家 我同時也是塑膠污染聯盟的發起人之一。 塑膠袋是我主要的創作材料 我把不同的塑膠袋剪開再縫合拼湊起來 已經有20年了。 我做出二度和三度象限的作品 還有塑像和擺置。 我的有些作品在大約八年後 開始產生裂縫 並分解成更小的塑膠塊。 我那時想,”太好了 跟人一樣,塑膠作品也有生命極限。“
Upon educating myself a little further about plastics, I actually realized this was a bad thing. It's a bad thing that plastic breaks down into smaller little bits, because it's always still plastic. And what we're finding is that a lot of it is in the marine environment. I then, in the last few years, learned about the Pacific garbage patch and the gyre. And my initial reaction -- and I think this is a lot of people's first reaction to learning about it -- is, "Oh my God! We've got to go out there and clean this thing up." So I actually developed a proposal to go out with a cargo ship and two decommissioned fishing trawlers, a crane, a chipping machine and a cold-molding machine. And my intention was to go out to the gyre, raise awareness about this issue and begin to pick up the plastic, chip it into little bits and cold mold it into bricks that could potentially be used as building materials in underdeveloped communities.
等我對塑膠的特性更了解了以後 我才知道這是一件壞事。 因爲雖然塑膠會裂成小塊 但那終究還是無法分解的塑膠。 我們還發現 有很多的塑膠都流到海裏。 在接下來的幾年 我也知道了北太平洋垃圾環流和垃圾漩渦。 我的第一個反應 跟很多人聽到這件事的反應 我想是一樣的 我想,”天哪, 我們應該出海去把這些垃圾清乾淨。“ 所以我真的提了一個計劃 跟一艘貨櫃船、 和兩艘退休的拖網漁船、 一座起重機、一座磨碎機、 還有一台冷模機出海。 我打算開到垃圾漩渦那裏去 一面讓人們了解這件事的嚴重性 也順便把塑膠撈起來 磨碎以後用機器壓成磚塊 以後送給發展中的國家 可以來當建材用。
I began talking with people who actually had been out to the gyre and were studying the plastic problem in the marine environment and upon doing so, I realized actually that cleaning it up would be a very small drop in the bucket relative to how much is being generated every day around the world, and that actually I needed to back up and look at the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is: we need to find a way to turn off the faucet. We need to cut the spigot of single-use and disposable plastics, which are entering the marine environment every day on a global scale.
我開始跟實際去過垃圾漩渦 或研究海洋垃圾問題的人 談及這個計劃 談過了以後我才知道 這樣去海上撈起來的塑膠 跟全世界每天實際上 產生的塑膠的量比起來 只是九牛一毛, 我必須退一步把問題看得清楚一些 真正的解決之道在於: 我們必須把生産垃圾的源頭關起來。 我們必須停止 這種使用一次就丟棄的塑膠產品 這些塑膠每天 以全球性的規模侵入海裏。
So in looking at that, I also realized that I was really angry. I wasn't just concerned about plastic that you're trying to imagine out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean -- of which I have learned there are now 11 gyres, potentially, of plastic in five major oceans in the world. It's not just that gyre of plastic that I'm concerned about -- it's the gyre of plastic in the supermarket. I'd go to the supermarket and all of my food is packaged in plastic. All of my beverages are packaged in plastic, even at the health food market. I'm also concerned about the plastic in the refrigerator, and I'm concerned about the plastic and the toxins that leach from plastic into us and into our bodies.
看到這,我十分的生氣。 我擔心的不只是海上漂浮的塑膠 你想象的在太平洋的中間的那些 我現在還知道 有11個塑膠垃圾漩渦 遍佈全球五大洋。 我關心的不只是這些塑膠垃圾的漩渦 還有這些充斥商場的塑膠。 我要是去超級市場買東西 吃的喝的所有包裝都是塑膠作的 即使在有機商店也是。 我也很關心冰箱裏的塑膠 還有從塑膠容器滲出的有毒物 被我們吃下和吸收。
So I came together with a group of other people who were all looking at this issue, and we created the Plastic Pollution Coalition. We have many initiatives that we're working on, but some of them are very basic. One is: if 80 to 90 percent of what we're finding in the ocean -- of the marine debris that we're finding in the ocean -- is plastic, then why don't we call it what it is. It's plastic pollution. Recycling -- everybody kind of ends their books about being sustainable and greening with the idea of recycling. You put something in a bin and you don't have to think about it again. What is the reality of that? In the United States, less than seven percent of our plastics are recycled. And if you really look into it, particularly when it comes to plastic bottles, most of it is only down-cycled, or incinerated, or shipped to China. It is down-cycled and turned into lesser things, while a glass bottle can be a glass bottle again or can be used again -- a plastic bottle can never be a plastic bottle again.
所以我跟其它的一些 關心研究這個問題的人 一起成立了“塑膠污染聯盟” 我們有很多主意正在進行 其中有一些是挺基本的。 其中之一為: 如果我們在海裡找到的垃圾裏 百分之80到90都是塑膠 那麽乾脆就稱之爲 塑膠污染(而不是垃圾污染)。 還有資源回收,所有提到綠色意識和永續經營的書 最後都是用“資源回收”的概念來結尾。 只要把廢棄物放到正確的回收桶裏就好了。 但真的是這樣嗎? 在美國,塑膠回收的比率不到7% 你要是進一步追蹤 特別是塑膠瓶 大部分只能降級回收(不能真的回收原料) 或是燒掉,或是運到中國去。 被降級回收並作成二次產物。 玻璃瓶回收處理後 又可以是玻璃瓶並再次使用, 但是塑膠瓶卻不會再被用作塑膠瓶。
So this is a big issue for us. Another thing that we're looking at and asking people to think about is we've added a fourth R onto the front of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," three R's, and that is refuse. Whenever possible, refuse single-use and disposable plastics. Alternatives exist; some of them are very old-school. I myself am now collecting these cool Pyrex containers and using those instead of Glad and Tupperware containers to store food in. And I know that I am doing a service to myself and my family. It's very easy to pick up a stainless-steel bottle or a glass bottle, if you're traveling and you've forgotten to bring your stainless-steel bottle and fill that up with water or filtered water, versus purchasing plastic bottled water.
所以這是嚴重的問題。 我們現在思考的,也要大家去想想的問題 就是在原本3R(減量、再利用、回收)的前面 再加一個R(Refuse拒絕)。 原本的3R:減量(Reduce)、再利用(Reuse)、回收(Recycle) 再加上 拒絕(Refuse)。 可以的話,盡量拒絕用過即丟的塑膠品 替代方案是有的。 有一些是我們上學時就知道了 我現在收集一些玻璃容器, 還有盡量不用塑膠的保鮮盒、保鮮袋 來裝食物。 我知道這樣做對我 和我家人是好事一件。 要找到一個不銹鋼瓶、玻璃瓶 也不是難事 你如果要出門 記得帶個不銹鋼瓶裝水 而不要在外面賣塑膠瓶裝水。
I guess what I want to say to everybody here -- and I know that you guys know a lot about this issue -- is that this is a huge problem in the oceans, but this is a problem that we've created as consumers and we can solve. We can solve this by raising awareness of the issue and teaching people to choose alternatives. So whenever possible, to choose alternatives to single-use plastics. We can cut the stem -- tide the stem of this into our oceans and in doing so, save our oceans, save our planet, save ourselves.
我想在這裡,對大家說的是 我也知道大家對這件事也懂得很多 那就是,漂浮在海上的塑膠,是個嚴重的問題 然而,這是身爲消費者的我們所製造的 我們也可以解決這個問題。 藉著喚起大家的意識 和教育大家使用塑膠的替代品來解決問題。 所以,盡量別用用過就丟的塑膠品 使用它的替代品 我們可以將塑膠流入海的問題 從根拔起, 也用這個行動 來救海洋、救地球、救我們自己。
Thank you. (Applause)
謝謝