大石油公司誤導(dǎo)公眾相信塑料可以回收利用

大石油公司誤導(dǎo)公眾相信塑料可以回收利用

Landfill workers bury all plastic except soda bottles and milk jugs at Rogue Disposal & Recycling in southern Oregon.

在南俄勒岡州，垃圾填埋場的工作人員將所有的塑料都埋在垃圾處理和回收站，除了汽水瓶和牛奶罐。

Laura Leebrick, a manager at Rogue Disposal & Recycling in southern Oregon, is standing on the end of its landfill watching an avalanche of plastic trash pour out of a semitrailer: containers, bags, packaging, strawberry containers, yogurt cups.

勞拉·利布里克是南俄勒岡州垃圾處理與回收站的經(jīng)理，她站在垃圾填埋場的盡頭，看著一堆塑料垃圾從一輛半拖車中傾倒出來:容器、袋子、包裝袋、草莓容器、酸奶杯。

None of this plastic will be turned into new plastic things. All of it is buried.

這些塑料都不會變成新的塑料制品。所有的一切都被掩埋了。

"To me that felt like it was a betrayal of the public trust," she said. "I had been lying to people ... unwittingly."

“在我看來，這是對公眾信任的背叛，”她說。“我一直在不知不覺地對人們?nèi)鲋e。”

Rogue, like most recycling companies, had been sending plastic trash to China, but when China shut its doors two years ago, Leebrick scoured the U.S. for buyers. She could find only someone who wanted white milk jugs. She sends the soda bottles to the state.

像大多數(shù)回收公司一樣，垃圾處理與回收站一直在向中國運送塑料垃圾，但當(dāng)中國兩年前關(guān)閉大門時，利布里克開始在美國尋找買家。她只能找到一個想要白牛奶罐的人。她把汽水瓶送到州政府。

But when Leebrick tried to tell people the truth about burying all the other plastic, she says people didn't want to hear it.

但當(dāng)利布里克試圖告訴人們關(guān)于掩埋所有其他塑料的真相時，她說人們不想聽。

"I remember the first meeting where I actually told a city council that it was costing more to recycle than it was to dispose of the same material as garbage," she says, "and it was like heresy had been spoken in the room: You're lying. This is gold. We take the time to clean it, take the labels off, separate it and put it here. It's gold. This is valuable."

“我記得在第一次會議上，我對市議會說，回收同樣的材料比處理垃圾花費更多，”她說，“這就像在房間里說了異端邪說:你在撒謊。這是黃金。我們花時間清理它，取下標(biāo)簽，把它分開，然后放在這里。這是黃金。這是有價值的。”

But it's not valuable, and it never has been. And what's more, the makers of plastic — the nation's largest oil and gas companies — have known this all along, even as they spent millions of dollars telling the American public the opposite.

但它沒有價值，也從來沒有。更重要的是，塑料制造商——美國最大的石油和天然氣公司——一直都知道這一點，即使他們花費數(shù)百萬美元告訴美國公眾相反的情況。

NPR and PBS Frontline spent months digging into internal industry documents and interviewing top former officials. We found that the industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn't work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic.

美國國家公共廣播電臺(NPR)和美國公共廣播電臺(PBS)的《前線》花了數(shù)月時間挖掘行業(yè)內(nèi)部文件，并采訪了前高級官員。我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，該行業(yè)向公眾兜售一個明知行不通的想法——即大部分塑料可以被回收，而且將會被回收——與此同時，向全世界出售新塑料，賺取數(shù)十億美元。

The industry's awareness that recycling wouldn't keep plastic out of landfills and the environment dates to the program's earliest days, we found. "There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis," one industry insider wrote in a 1974 speech.

我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，塑料行業(yè)意識到回收不會讓塑料遠離垃圾填埋場和環(huán)境，這種意識可以追溯到該計劃的最早時期。一位業(yè)內(nèi)人士在1974年的一次演講中寫道:“人們嚴(yán)重懷疑(回收塑料)能否在經(jīng)濟上可行。”

Yet the industry spent millions telling people to recycle, because, as one former top industry insider told NPR, selling recycling sold plastic, even if it wasn't true.

然而，該行業(yè)花費了數(shù)百萬美元告訴人們要回收利用，因為正如一位前業(yè)內(nèi)人士告訴美國國家公共電臺(NPR)的那樣，出售回收利用就是出售塑料，即使這不是真的。

"If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment," Larry Thomas, former president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, told NPR.

“如果公眾認為回收是有效的，那么他們就不會那么關(guān)心環(huán)境了，”塑料工業(yè)協(xié)會前主席拉里·托馬斯告訴NPR。

In response, industry representative Steve Russell, until recently the vice president of plastics for the trade group the American Chemistry Council, said the industry has never intentionally misled the public about recycling and is committed to ensuring all plastic is recycled.

作為回應(yīng)，行業(yè)代表史蒂夫·羅素表示，該行業(yè)從未在回收問題上有意誤導(dǎo)公眾，而是致力于確保所有塑料都得到回收。羅素直到最近才擔(dān)任行業(yè)組織美國化學(xué)理事會塑料副總裁。