06/06 TOP NEWS | 拒绝塑料污染，我们都是行动者

CURBING PLASTIC POLLUTION IS EVERYONE'S BUSINESS拒绝塑料污染，我们都是行动者

Despite knowing尽管多年来for years that we need to reduce人们早就明白需要减少our reliance on plastics对塑料的依赖they're still almost impossible to escape但在日常生活中要摆脱它们in everyday life仍然比较困难According to data provider Statista根据Statista提供的数据more than half a billion people across China中国有超过5亿人use online food delivery services使用外卖服务That's tens这意味着to hundreds of millions of packages like this one每天有数千万到数亿份being opened像这样的外卖every day被打开And as you can see plastic packaging is the norm正如你所看到的 塑料包装非常普遍Today's lunch is今天的午餐是Dongbei-style dumplings with a few side dishes东北饺子和一些配菜and you can see there's plastic all over it很多都是塑料包装We've got plastic packaging我们可以看到for the dumplings themselves饺子的塑料包装plastic packaging for the side dishes配菜的塑料包装plastic packaging as well for the dipping sources甚至蘸酱的包装也是Since the 50s of last century自上世纪50年代以来the world has全世界已经produced more than 8 billion tonnes of plastic生产了超过80亿吨的塑料60% of them ended up in the landfill其中60%最终被填埋or just leaking to the nature或直接流入大自然中And today, every single day如今 每一天都有30,000 tonnes of plastic leaks into the ocean30,000吨塑料泄漏到海洋中So this is a very huge number of这是一个非常巨大的数字these are very huge number这是一个非常巨大的数字and they signifies the problem behind that它们标志着这背后问题的严重性In 2021 China banned2021年 中国发布“升级版限塑令”plastic drinking straws and single use plastic bags禁止了塑料吸管和一次性塑料袋And while in big cities like Shanghai虽然在上海the transition这样的大城市away from plastic and towards other materials从塑料向纸质like cardboard or bamboo polymer或竹制聚合物等材料的吸管drinking straws has been pretty quick过渡非常迅速single use plastic bags are still extremely common但一次性塑料袋仍然常见So are incentives那么 激励措施and pleas to be more mindful of the environment和对环境保护的呼吁enough to turn companies away是否足以使企业放弃使用from so much unnecessary plastic如此多的不必要的塑料Globally there are more and more international在全球范围内 有越来越多的sustainability standards可持续性标准requiring or encouraging the companies鼓励或要求公司to disclose or take actions to link披露塑料相关信息或采取行动In terms of the the plastic issue就塑料问题而言It's not that easy to solve它不是那么容易解决的As you can see如你所见first the companies need to conduct首先 公司需要对a thorough life-cycle assessment替代解决方案进行of the alternative solutions to see if全面的生命周期评估if it's actually a better alternative solution看它在环境和社会影响方面in terms of是否真的是一个the environmental impact and the social impact更好的替代解决方案and also同时the company need to conduct financial assessment to公司还需要进行财务评估to see if they can afford it看自己是否能够负担得起In 2019 the WWF2019年 世界自然基金会put the total societal cost of a single year's认定全球一年生产的塑料global plastic production产生的社会总成本为at 3.7 trillion US dollars3.7万亿美元But the financial costs of但改用switching to more environmentally friendly materials更环保的材料的财务成本are still more easily borne by larger companies更容易被大公司接受The WWF says more attention needs to be focussed世界自然基金会表示on the smaller companies需要更多地关注which make up the bulk of the Chinese economy占中国经济大部分的小公司to help them ditch plastics too以帮助它们也放弃塑料We know that there's economy uncertainty我们知道经济发展存在不确定性and it might cause difficulties for company而改用一次性塑料的替代品just to switch to use other这件事本身substitutes of single use plastics或许就可能造成困难But I think we can also take this as an opportunity但我认为我们也可以抓住这个机会to reduce the the costs and find以降低成本even find more business opportunities from that甚至创造更多商机