| Plastic |
December 5, 2019
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| He took this magazine from the magazine stand at a convenient store, and flipped through some pages and decided to buy it. One article drew his attention. It was about the 'micro plastic problem'. The magazine was a famous science magazine. He knew the name because when he was a college student, he saw it at the college library, although he never read it. The magazine was expensive when thinking about the amount of pages therein, and on top of it, it was a monthly magazine. But he thought that the cost was for the quality of articles and its writers. They are scientists or researchers. In this country, they are the professional people who don't receive a suitable pay compared to their contribution to society. There is a lot of information on the internet, which is free. However the information from those articles are usually shallow. Recently, the internet has put the publishing industry into a difficult situation. So publishing companies have to raise the price in order to cover the loss by the decreasing number of their readers. The article was titled "What is the problem of plastic waste?" The article was eight  pages in length, and each page showed data and pictures, along with the detailed story. He read it quickly and he felt the article was good, trustworthy and persuasive. There was four main points:First: There are roughly five types of plastics that are used in society for various purposes. In the world, about 4 hundred million ton of plastic is produced every year. 50% of this is used for single-use, like shopping bags and PET bottles. Second: Handling plastic after collection. There are three methods: to burn, reuse, or to bury. In the world, 2 percent of plastic isn't handled like this, which means that about 8 million tons of plastic is not accounted for. In fact, most of this 2% finds its way into the sea every year. Since the total amount of plastic that is produced is huge, the plastic going into nature is huge, also. Third: The plastic problem has become the seas' problem. Unhandled waste plastic gets into rivers and the sea by rain and floods, because they are light and can float. They flow into the sea and gather together because of the sea currents. The plastic inevitably becomes smaller and smaller because of ultraviolet rays. However, fish and seabirds mistakenly eat them. As plastic can't be digested in the body, it affects the creatures badly. Bigger fish and animals eat smaller fish. Some kind of plastics are poisonous. Fourth: Recycling isn't a perfect solution. It has risks that some poisonous plastics can end up being mixed in the middle of some recycled plastics. Recycling requires another energy, which produces CO2. In addition, there will be loss during recycling, for example 5 PET bottles will become 4 after the recycling process. So, alternatives to recycling are demanded, for example, some materials that would decompose in nature. However, currently some new materials are heavier than seawater so they sink. Even new easy-to-decompose materials won't decompose if they are in the deep sea because ultraviolet rays don't penetrate the depths and the water's coldness won't promote decomposition. So, ultimately, the conclusion of the article was that we need to reduce the use of plastic itself. To look at his daily life, his three meals a day owe a lot plastic. The vegetables and meat that he would buy were packed and wrapped with plastic. All readymade food was packed in plastic. When he put his waste plastic out on the recycle day, he was amazed at the amount of plastic waste that he used. He could remember that he watched a show on TV that Swedish people were meticulous about separating their plastic things. They separated even small pieces of plastic wrapping. The Swedes are the descendants of the Vikings. It was humorous that those people did such small things. But, to come to think of it, for the Vikings, the sea should be a sacred and very important place. They would save the sea. He was the person who should follow their ways. That night, he dreamt that he was eating. When he was eating some grilled fish, he realized that his teeth bit into something. It was a piece of plastic. He sighed. In these days, this type of thing sometimes happened, he thought. So he had to eat slowly and carefully. He gave up the fish and started to eat some beef steak. Then he stopped. "Again?" It was a fragment of plastic. Then he began to eat some bread, and he felt a bad hunch and …. He woke up. He knew that this dream was ridiculous, plastic fragments can't be inside meat because the owner has its stomach. But maybe, fish and seabirds must feel like he did, he thought. |
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*persuasive :説得力のある
*account :行方を確認する
*current :流れ
*inevitably :避けられず
*ultraviolet ray :紫外線
*alternative :代替
*currently :現在
*decompose :分解する
*own :負う
*meticulous :細かい
*descendant :子孫
*sacred :神聖な
*hunch :勘