Look at the damage done by plastic bags. It is everywhere.
看看塑料袋造成的破坏。到处都是。
Not long ago, lots of politicians were so eager to say
不久前，很多政客急切地说
Let’s ban plastic bags
让我们禁止塑料袋。
Lots of places did ban them, but now they’re busy taking it back.
很多地方的确禁止了塑料袋，但现在他们又忙着用回塑料袋
A lift on local bans of plastic bags.
当地禁塑令放开了。
Instead, they're banning their once favored substitute, reusable bags.
相反，他们开始禁止他们一度喜爱的替代品，可再用袋子。
No use of reusable bags.
不能用可再用袋子了。
Of course this is because of the pandemic.
当然这是由于本次大流行。
The bags could bring the virus into the store.
这种袋子可能将病毒带进商店。
Reusable bags were already bringing bacteria in. People were supposed to wash those bags but it turned out
可再用袋子早就带进细菌了。人们应该清洗这些袋子，但原来
97% never washed their bags.
97% 的人从未清洗过他们的袋子。
So plastic bags’ replacements are crawling with bacteria.
所以塑料袋的替代品爬满了细菌。
If you take your reusable bags into the store. They’re touching everything and you have 5 people touch them before you bring them out.
假如你带可再用袋子进店。它们碰来碰去，你把袋子带出来之前有五个人会碰到它。
After plastic was banned in San Francisco, food poisoning deaths increased. But Greenpeace says disease fears are misinformation from rightwing thinktanks pushing their pro pollution agendas.
在旧金山禁止塑料后，食物中毒致死案上升了。但绿色和平称，对疾病的恐惧是右翼智库为推动他们亲污染议程散播的错误信息。
There are no studies or no evidence that reusable bags are transmitting viruses, particularly the coronavirus.
没有研究或证据表明可再用袋子会传播病毒，尤其是新冠病毒。
Alex Truelove of the Public Interest Research Group is right about the lack of human Covid-19 studies. But when millions of piglets died of swine coronavirus
公共利益研究组织的亚历克斯·特鲁伊洛夫关于缺乏人类 Covid-19 研究的说法是正确的。但当上百万头猪仔死于猪冠状病毒：
The agriculture department concluded that the reusable feed bags were the likely cause.
农业部的结论称这有可能是可再用饲料袋引起的。
It's a hard one to equate to our experiences around the grocery store. I mean, we're not dragging our reusable bags through pig stys.
这个结论很难与我们在杂货店的经历划上等号。我的意思是，我们并没有把可再用袋子带进猪圈。
As soon as this crisis is over we’ll go back to all paper bags.
这场危机一结束，我们就将回归纸袋。
Some politicians still can’t wait to ban plastic.
部分政客仍然等不及要禁止塑料。
Politicians are always just looking for something to do. They want to look like that they stand for something.
政客总是想着要找点事情做。他们想要让自己看起来有所坚持。
Supermarket executive Andrea Catsimitidis complains that paper bags cost much more.
超市经理人安德丽·卡西玛德迪斯抱怨纸袋子成本高太多。
How greedy are you, make a few pennies less.
你是有多贪婪，少赚几毛钱而已。
It sounds like a couple pennies, but really when you’re talking about billions of bags it really adds up.
听起来是几毛钱，但当你谈的是数以亿计的袋子时，真加起来就多了。
What if you need that last 5 cents to pay for something else and you don’t have it because you just put your money on the bag.
要是你需要这最后五分来买别的东西但你没有，因为你刚把钱花在这个袋子上了。
A bag that doesn’t hold as much.
这个袋子装不了多少东西。
Look at this.
看看。
That point was proven a moment later
这一点马上被验证了。
when his bag ripped.
他的袋子破了。
These things are convenient. They're light and cheap. I like them. Why do you have to take away everything that's convenient?
这些东西很方便。它们轻巧又便宜。我喜欢它们。为什么你们要抢走一切便利的东西呢？
Over two thirds of everything we use is not recycled or composted and just ends up somewhere like a landfill.
我们使用的物品里有三分之二以上不会被回收或制成肥料，而是直接进入堆填区。
But why is dumping things in landfills a problem? People think we’re running out of room for landfills, but that’s absurd.
但为什么扔进堆填区是个问题？人们想我们快用完堆填区了，但这是荒谬的。
If you just take a look at where you live from the air you wouldn't even be able to see where the landfill is. There's such a small pinpoint on the map.
如果你从天上看看你住的地方附近，你甚至看不到堆填区在哪里。那是地图上的一个小小的针点。
Environmental economist Ross McKitrick points out that all of America’s trash for the entire century would fit in one landfill just 18 miles square. And today’s landfills hardly pollute.
环境经济学家麦基·特里克指出全美国所有垃圾都能装进一个只占 18 平方英里的堆填区。而且今天的堆填区几乎不污染环境。
These days a landfill typically contains many layers to keep it safe and secure.
如今的堆填区一般包含许多层以确保它安全可靠。
And once they’re full
而且一旦它们满了
We build on top of them or they're turned into parks.
我们在它们上面起建筑或将它们变成公园。
But what about all that plastic pollution in the ocean?
但海洋里的塑料污染呢？
Companies are choosing to make something that will be used just once from a material that lasts forever.
企业选择用永久存在的材料制造只使用一次的产品。
8 million metric tons of plastic enters the ocean every year.
每年有八百万吨塑料流入海洋。
Green groups like his are convincing people that plastic is terrible.
像他加入的绿色组织试图说服人们塑料是可怕的。
We definitely need to do something about the environment. I mean, we're killing ourselves, man.
我们一定要为环境做点事情。我是说，我们在自杀啊，伙计。
Your opponents are winning.
你的反对者赢了。
They win by getting people alarmed about an actual problem, namely plastics in the ocean, and then misleading them about their role in it.
他们赢是通过让人们警惕一个实际问题，即海洋中的塑料，接着令他们误解自己在其中的作用。
One garbage truck of plastic is dumped in the sea every minute.
每一分钟就有一辆垃圾车的塑料被扔到海里。
Let's get some facts on the table about where that plastic comes from.
让我们摆出事实，看看塑料到底来自哪里。
Almost 90% comes from Asia and Africa.
几乎 90% 来自亚洲和非洲。
The North American fraction is less than 1%.
北美所占比例不到 1%。
What we do in America isn't going to make any difference.
我们在美国的付出不会造成任何区别。
We should do what we can with our own power to reduce our own waste and set an example for the rest of the world.
我们应该尽自己所能减少浪费，给全世界树立榜样。
That's just posturing. The rest of the world isn't looking to see what you do with your Starbucks cup. If we are concerned about other countries waste going into their river systems, there are better things that we can do. We can share with them the technology so they can process their waste better. That is not the same as imposing on consumers tiresome inconveniences in the hopes that it's going to somehow change behavior on the other side of the planet.
那只是装腔作势。世界上其他国家并不会看你如何处理你的星巴克杯子。假如我们在意其他国家的垃圾进入他们的河流系统，我们有更好的事情可做。我们可以与他们共享技术，这样他们便能更好地处理废物。不像是将令人厌烦的不便强加给顾客，却希望那样能改变地球另一端的行为。
翻译：mangosteen
校对：FungChuh
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