This is the story of three plastic bottles, empty and discarded. Their journeys are about to diverge with outcomes that impact nothing less than the fate of the planet. But they weren't always this way. To understand where these bottles end up, we must first explore their origins.
Esta é a historia de tres botellas de plástico, baleiras e refugadas. A súas viaxes sufrirán un cambio cuxos resultados impactan nada menos que no destino do planeta. Pero non sempre foron así. Para entender onde terminan estas botellas, primeiro cómpre investigar as súas orixes.
The heroes of our story were conceived in this oil refinery. The plastic in their bodies was formed by chemically bonding oil and gas molecules together to make monomers. In turn, these monomers were bonded into long polymer chains to make plastic in the form of millions of pellets. Those were melted at manufacturing plants and reformed in molds to create the resilient material that makes up the triplets' bodies. Machines filled the bottles with sweet bubbily liquid and they were then wrapped, shipped, bought, opened, consumed and unceremoniously discarded. And now here they lie, poised at the edge of the unknown.
As heroínas da nosa historia foron concibidas nesta refinaría de petróleo. O plástico dos seus corpos formouse grazas ao enlace químico de moléculas de petróleo e gas, que crea monómeros. Pola súa vez, estes monómeros únense en longas cadeas de polímeros para convertérense en plástico en forma de millóns de gránulos. Estes fundíronse en plantas de fabricación e transformáronse en moldes para crear o material resistente que forma o corpo das nosas tres botellas. As máquinas encheron as botellas cun líquido doce con burbullas e logo foron empaquetadas, transportadas, compradas, abertas, consumidas, e, sen máis, refugadas. E agora xacen aquí, ás beiras do descoñecido.
Bottle one, like hundreds of millions of tons of his plastic brethren, ends up in a landfill. This huge dump expands each day as more trash comes in and continues to take up space. As plastics sit there being compressed amongst layers of other junk, rainwater flows through the waste and absorbs the water-soluble compounds it contains, and some of those are highly toxic. Together, they create a harmful stew called leachate, which can move into groundwater, soil and streams, poisoning ecosystems and harming wildlife. It can take bottle one an agonizing 1,000 years to decompose.
A botella un, como centos de millóns de toneladas das súas irmás de plástico, acaba nun vertedoiro. Este enorme vertedoiro medra cada día conforme chega máis lixo e segue ocupando espazo. A medida que o plástico queda comprimido entre capas de lixo, a auga de choiva flúe a través dos residuos e absorbe os compostos solubles en auga que estes conteñen, algúns deles altamente tóxicos. Xuntos, crean un caldo daniño chamado <i>lixiviado</i>, que pasa á auga subterránea, ao solo e ás correntes, envelenando os ecosistemas e danando a vida silvestre. A botella un pode agonizar mil anos ata descomporse.
Bottle two's journey is stranger but, unfortunately, no happier. He floats on a trickle that reaches a stream, a stream that flows into a river, and a river that reaches the ocean. After months lost at sea, he's slowly drawn into a massive vortex, where trash accumulates, a place known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Here the ocean's currents have trapped millions of pieces of plastic debris. This is one of five plastic-filled gyres in the world's seas. Places where the pollutants turn the water into a cloudy plastic soup. Some animals, like seabirds, get entangled in the mess. They, and others, mistake the brightly colored plastic bits for food. Plastic makes them feel full when they're not, so they starve to death and pass the toxins from the plastic up the food chain. For example, it's eaten by lanternfish, the lanternfish are eaten by squid, the squid are eaten by tuna, and the tuna are eaten by us. And most plastics don't biodegrade, which means they're destined to break down into smaller and smaller pieces called micro plastics, which might rotate in the sea eternally.
A viaxe da botella dúas é estraña pero, por desgraza, non máis feliz. Aboia nunha corrente que dá nun regato, que dá nun río que chega ao mar. Despois de meses perdida no mar, únese lentamente a un enorme remuíño onde se acumula lixo, un lugar coñecido como Gran Mancha de Lixo do Pacífico. Aquí as correntes oceánicas atraparon millóns de refugallos plásticos. Este é un dos cinco remuíños de plástico dos mares do mundo. Sitios onde os contaminantes converten a auga nunha turbia sopa de plástico. Algúns animais, como as aves mariñas, enguedéllanse nesa lea. Estas, e outras, confunden con alimentos os anacos de plástico de cores brillantes. O plástico dálles sensación de saciedade pero non é así, por iso morren de fame e pasan as toxinas do plástico á cadea alimentaria. Por exemplo, os peixes lanterna comen os plásticos, as luras comen os peixes lanterna, os atúns come as luras, e nós comemos os atúns. E a maioría dos plásticos non son biodegradables, o que significa que se desintegrarán en anacos cada vez máis pequenos chamados <i>microplásticos</i>, que poden permanecer no mar eternamente.
But bottle three is spared the cruel purgatories of his brothers. A truck brings him to a plant where he and his companions are squeezed flat and compressed into a block. Okay, this sounds pretty bad, too, but hang in there. It gets better. The blocks are shredded into tiny pieces, which are washed and melted, so they become the raw materials that can be used again. As if by magic, bottle three is now ready to be reborn as something completely new.
Pero a botella tres líbrase do purgatorio cruel das súas irmás. Un camión lévaa a unha planta onde é comprimida xunto coas súas compañeiras para formar un bloque. Vale, isto tamén soa bastante mal, pero espera. Isto mellora. Os bloques tritúranse en pequenos anacos, que se lavan, fúndense, e convértense en materia prima que se pode reutilizar. Como por encantamento, a botella tres está lista para renacer como algo completamente novo.
For this bit of plastic with such humble origins, suddenly the sky is the limit.
Para este anaco de plástico de orixe tan humilde, de súpeto, o ceo é o límite.