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.
Ovo je priča o tri plastične boce, prazne i odbačene. Njihovi će se putevi razići s posljedicama koje utječu na sudbinu planeta. Ali nisu uvijek bile ovakve. Da bismo razumjeli gdje će boce završiti, prvo moramo proučiti njihovo podrijetlo.
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.
Heroji naše priče stvoreni su u ovoj rafineriji nafte. Plastika u njihovim tijelima stvorena je kemijskim spojevima molekula nafte i plina, koji čine monomere. Onda su ti monomeri vezani u duge lance polimera koji čine plastiku u obliku milijuna peleta. Njih se otapa u tvornicama i ponovno oblikuje u kalupima kako bi se stvorio elastični materijal koji čini tijelo trojki. Strojevi pune boce slatkom gaziranom tekućinom, a onda su zamotane, otpremljene, kupljene, otvorene, iskorištene i grubo odbačene. Sada leže ovdje, staložene na rubu nepoznatog.
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.
Prva boca, poput stotina milijuna tona svoje plastične braće, završava na odlagalištu. Ovo ogromno smetlište povećava se svakog dana kako sve više smeća dolazi i nastavlja zauzimati prostor. Kako plastika stoji zbijena ispod slojeva drugog smeća, kišnica prolazi kroz otpad i upija spojeve topive u vodi koje ona sadrži, a neki od njih su vrlo otrovni. Zajedno čine štetne juhe, zvane procjedne vode, koje mogu doći do podzemnih voda, tla i potoka, usput trujući ekosustave i šteteći divljim životinjama. Prvoj boci za raspad može biti potrebno i 1000 mučeničkih godina.
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.
Putovanje druge boce čudnije je, ali, nažalost, ne i sretnije. Ona pluta na vodi koja doseže potok, potokom koji utječe u rijeku, i rijekom koja dolazi do oceana. Nakon mjeseci plutanja morem, lagano je privučen u ogromni vrtlog u kojem se skuplja smeće, mjesto koje zovemo Velikim pacifičkim tepihom od smeća. Ovdje su morske struje zarobile milijune komada plastičnog otpada. To je jedan od pet vrtloga ispunjenih plastikom u svjetskim morima, mjesta gdje zagađivači pretvaraju vodu u mutnu plastičnu juhu. Neke životinje, poput morskih ptica, bivaju zapetljane u neredu. One, i druge, brkaju svijetlo obojane plastične komade s hranom. Zbog plastike se osjećaju sito kad nisu, pa umru od gladi i predaju toksine iz plastike dalje kroz hranidbeni lanac. Na primjer, jede ju žaboglavka, lignje jedu žaboglavke, tune jedu lignje, a tune jedemo mi. Većina plastika nije biorazgradiva, što znači da se razlažu na sve manje komadiće, zvane mikro plastikom, koji vječno mogu kružiti u moru.
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.
No treća je boca pošteđena okrutnih čistilišta svoje braće. Kamion ju odnese u tvornicu gdje su ona i njeni prijatelji stisnuti i zbijeni u kocku. Dobro, i to zvuči prilično loše, no samo pričekaj. Postane bolje. Kocke su isjeckane u sitne komadiće koje se opere i otopi, pa postanu sirovi materijal koji se ponovno može iskoristiti. Kao magijom, treća boca može se preporoditi kao nešto potpuno novo.
For this bit of plastic with such humble origins, suddenly the sky is the limit.
Za ovaj komad plastike skromnog podrijetla, iznenada je samo nebo granica.