What do we do with used plastic? 我们怎么处理用过的塑料?
What happens chemically to used plastic? 使用过的塑料会发生什么化学变化?
How does plastic affect the environment? 塑料如何影响环境？
Plastic is made up of complex hydrocarbon polymers, which during manufacturing, are turned into a material unrecognizable by decomposer organisms. Scientists estimate plastic will need 1000 years to decompose, and therefore most of the plastic ever produced is still in the environment. As we can see from the diagram below, only a very small fraction of plastic is recycled, and an even smaller percent is continually recycled.
塑料是由复杂的碳氢化合物聚合物组成的，在生产过程中，这些聚合物会变成一种分解生物无法识别的材料。科学家估计，塑料需要1000年的时间才能分解，因此迄今为止产生的大部分塑料仍在环境中。从下面的图表中我们可以看到，只有非常小的一部分塑料被回收，更小的比例被持续回收。