Name: 【海洋教育】還覺得一個寶特瓶沒什麼？看看太平洋垃圾帶究竟有多大！ (How Big The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Really Is)
Uploaded: 2020-01-04T21:01:30.000Z
Duration: 3 min 19 s

The world produces enough plastic each year to build 50 Pyramids of Giza.

全世界每年會產生足以建造 50 座古夫金字塔的塑膠。

That's over 350 million tons of candy wrappers, PVC pipes, and synthetic T-shirts.

這個量是超過 3.5 億噸的糖果紙、PVC 水管和人造纖維 T-shirt。

While most of it ends up in landfills, eight million tons of plastic winds up in our oceans each year, where most of it finds its way into massive garbage patches around the world.

儘管大部分最後都會到垃圾掩埋場，每年卻仍有八百萬噸的塑膠會落入我們的海洋，並且大部分都會進入世界各地的巨型垃圾帶。

And the biggest of them all is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

而其中最大的一個叫做太平洋垃圾帶。

If you picked up each piece of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, you'd carry away about 1.8 trillion individual pieces.

如果你撿起太平洋垃圾帶裡的每一件塑膠，你總共會拿走 1.8 兆件個別的塑膠。

That's 10 times more plastic pieces than there are stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. And it would weigh a whopping 80,000 tons, equivalent to the weight of three Statues of Liberty.

這比我們銀河系裡的星星多了 10 倍，並且總重高達 8 萬噸，相當於 3 座自由女神像的重量。

Half of the entire patch is made of plastic fishing nets, lines, and ropes which come from intense fishing activity near the area.

整個垃圾帶有一半是由塑膠漁網、釣魚線和繩組成的，而這些都是來自於附近密集的漁業活動。

The other half is mostly hard plastics and films like water bottles and plastic wrap. But don't let the name Great Pacific Garbage Patch fool you.

另外一半主要是硬塑膠和薄膜，像是寶特瓶和保鮮膜，不過不要被「太平洋垃圾帶」這個名稱給騙了。

It doesn't look like a giant mountain of trash at all.

它看起來完全不像是一座巨大的垃圾山。

It's actually scattered over a region of ocean that's twice the size of Texas according to some estimates.

根據估計，它其實是散落在一區面積相當於兩個德州的海域。

So, if you wanted to pick up every piece of plastic, it would take you 121 days at a walking pace of 5 kilometers per hour to cover the entire area.

所以，如果你想撿起每一件塑膠，你需要以時速五公里的速度走上 121 天才能走完整個區域。

Though in reality, there's no true end since the garbage patch is constantly ebbing and flowing with the ocean currents.

但是事實上根本就沒有真正的盡頭，因為垃圾帶會隨著海流不斷地起伏漂流。

But let's pretend we could scoop it all up into one place.

不過就讓我們先假裝我們可以把垃圾全部集中到一個地方。

There'd be enough plastic to fill 100 Boeing 747 planes, and the patch is only getting bigger.

將會有足以裝滿 100 架波音 747 飛機的塑膠，而垃圾帶只會越來越大。

It's actually been growing exponentially larger for nearly 70 years, partly because once the plastic is there, it'll stick around for centuries.

事實上，這 70 年來它一直呈指數性地成長，部分原因是，一旦塑膠到了那裡之後，它就會一直在那好幾個世紀。

Those plastic fishing lines, for example, will take 600 years to break down.

以那些塑膠釣魚線為例，它們需要 600 年的時間才能分解。

And even after they break down, the damage doesn't stop there.

而就算它們分解了，傷害並不止於此。

Most end up as microplastics that are too small to see with the naked eye but can make it into the bellies of sea animals and, ultimately, the humans that will eat those animals.

大部分會變成小到肉眼看不見的塑膠微粒，並進入海洋生物的肚子裡，最終，進入食用這些生物的人類體內。

Worldwide, researchers have found ingested microplastics in every species of sea turtle, nearly 60% of whale species, and almost 60% of sea birds.

在全世界，研究員已經在每一種海龜、將近 6 成的鯨魚種類以及幾乎 6 成的海鳥體內發現被食入的塑膠微粒。

Plus, more plastic is pouring into the world's oceans each day.

再加上每天都有更多塑膠被排進全球的海洋。

In fact, experts estimate that by the year 2050, the amount of plastic in the oceans will outweigh all the world's fish.

事實上，專家預估，到了 2050 年，海洋中塑膠的重量將超過全世界的魚類總重。

Think about that the next time you toss your water bottle in the trash because the recycling is full.

下一次當你因為回收桶滿了而想要把寶特瓶丟入一般垃圾桶時，想想這個數字。