Plastic Bags Are Good for You
塑料袋是个好东西
What prohibitionists get wrong about one of modernity’s greatest inventions
禁用主义者对现代最伟大发明之一的理解错在何处
Here is a list of things that are thicker than a typical plastic grocery bag: A strand of hair. A coat of paint.A human cornea.
以下所列物品都比普通的塑料购物袋要厚：一绺头发、一层涂漆、人类的眼角膜。
High-density polyethylene is a miracle of materials science.
高密度聚乙烯是材料科学的一项奇迹。
Despite weighing less than 5 grams, one bag can hold 17 pounds, well over 1,000 times its own weight. At about a penny apiece, the bags are cheap enough for stores to give away and sturdy enough to carry home two gallons of milk in the evening and still be up to the task of scooping Cujo’s poop the next morning.
尽管自身不足5克，一个塑料袋却可以装载17磅的重物，这超过它自身重量足足1000多倍。塑料袋非常便宜，大约每个才一分钱，商店不介意免费发放；塑料袋也非常牢固，晚上装着两加仑牛奶回家后，第二天早上还能用来装宠物狗的粪便。
Yet almost as soon as grocers started offering their customers the choice of “paper or plastic?” these modern marvels became a whipping boy for environmentalists, politicians, and other well-intentioned, ill-informed busybodies. Plastic bags for retail purchases are banned or taxed in more than 200 municipalities and a dozen countries, from San Francisco to South Africa, Bellingham to Bangladesh.
然而几乎就在杂货商开始让顾客选择“纸袋还是塑料袋？”的时候，这些现代奇迹却开始沦为环保主义者、政客和其他出于善意却知之甚少的好管闲事者的替罪羊。从旧金山到南非，从贝灵汉到孟加拉国等超过200个市和十多个国家，禁用零售塑料购物袋，或对其征税。
Each region serves up its own custom blend of alarmist rhetoric; coastal areas blame the wispy totes for everything from asphyxiated sea turtles to melting glaciers, while inland banners decry the bags’ role in urban landscape pollution and thoughtless consumerism.
每个地区都炮制出各自版本的危言耸听之词；海岸区域把从窒息而死的海龟到冰川融化的一切问题都怪在这纤弱袋子头上，而内陆地区的宣传则谴责塑料袋造成了城市污染和没心没肺的消费主义。
But a closer look at the facts and figures reveals shaky science and the uncritical repetition of improbable statistics tossed about to shore up the case for a mostly aesthetic, symbolic act of conservation.
然而如果你仔细审视事实和数据就会发现，上述做法在科学上牵强附会，对荒谬的统计数字不加鉴别、人云亦云。人们用它们来支撑的，差不多只是一种审美上的、符号化的环保行动。
How did one of the most efficient, resource-saving inventions of the 20th century become an environmentalist bugaboo?
那么，20世纪最具有效率、最节省资源的发明之一是如何成为环保人士眼中的妖孽的？
Research
研究
Before 1800, if you bought or traded for an object, you were pretty much on your own to get it home. People carried baskets for the little stuff and wheeled carts for the bigger items, often toting scraps of canvas or other durable fabric to wrap messier or more fragile goods, such as meat or pastries. This was back when the germ theory of disease was yet to be broadly accepted, and there were not yet Laundromats on every street corner.
在十九世纪之前，如果你购买或交换到一件物品，基本上需要靠自己把物品带回家。如果是小件物品，人们用篮子装，大件则用轮车载。人们还常常携带帆布或其它耐用织物来包裹较脏乱或较易碎的物品，比如肉或糕点。那时细菌致病的理论尚未被广泛认同，自助洗衣店也还没有遍及每一个街角。
In the early 19th century, paper became cheap enough that merchants started using it to package their wares, tying off the bundles with string—a huge leap for both convenience and sanitation. The paper bag was invented in the 1850s, but it wasn’t until the 1870s that a factory girl named Margaret Knight cobbled together a machine that cut, folded, and glued flat-bottomed paper receptacles.
19世纪早期，因为纸价变得足够低，商人开始用纸张包装商品并用绳子捆绑——这在便捷和卫生方面都是一个巨大进步。纸袋发明于1850年代，但直到1870年代，才由一个叫Margaret Knight的女工拼装出了一台可以剪裁、折叠并粘合平底纸袋的机器。
While the brown paper bag seems like the height of humdrum to modern eyes, Knight’s machine was kind of a big deal: She won a bitter intellectual property fight to receive one of the first patents ever awarded to a woman, and was eventually decorated by Queen Victoria for her efforts. Over time, the paper bag got cheaper and stronger and sprouted handles, but it remained essentially unchanged, comfortably dominating the stuff-schlepping market for the next 100 years.
那种棕色纸袋如今看起来平淡无奇，但当时Knight的机器在某种意义上却是一个了不得的发明：她赢得了一场艰苦的知识产权官司，成为最早获得专利的女性之一，并因此最终获维多利亚女王授勋。随着时间推移，纸袋变得更便宜，更坚固，并长出了手环，但本质未变，在随后的100年里轻松地主宰了物品携带市场。
Meanwhile, German chemist Hans von Pechmann was messing around with methane and ether in a lab in 1898 when he happened to notice a waxy precipitate called polymethylene. Unfortunately, no one could puzzle out what to do with the goo, so another 30 years would pass before DuPont chemists stumbled upon a similar compound, polyethylene. This time, the British figured out they could use it to insulate radar cables, which is where the substance served its war duty.
与此同时，1898年当德国化学家Hans von Pechmann在实验室中捣鼓甲烷和乙醚时，他碰巧注意到一种被称为聚亚甲基的蜡状凝结物。不幸的是，当时没人知道这种黏糊糊的东西能用来干什么。又过了30年，杜邦公司的化学家们偶然发现了一种相似的化合物：聚乙烯。这一次，英国人发现他们可以用聚乙烯来为雷达的电线做绝缘层，这就是聚乙烯在战时的功用。
In 1953, Karl Ziegler of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (later re-christened the Max Planck Institute, for obvious reasons) and Erhard Holzkamp invented high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and soon after figured out how to use it to make pipes. Ziegler even snagged a Nobel Prize for the invention in 1963.
1953年，“威廉皇帝研究所”（后因众所周知的原因改名为“马克斯·普朗克研究所”）的Karl Ziegler和Erhard Holzkamp发明了高密度聚乙烯（HDPE），并很快设法用该物质制造管子。Ziegler还因为这项发明获得了1963年的诺贝尔奖。
But GustafThulinSten is the real hero (or villain, depending on your point of view) of our tale. An employee of the Swedish company Celloplast, Sten was the person who had the inspiration to punch holes into the side of super-thin tubes of HDPE, thus creating the ubiquitous, filmy “T-shirt bags” we know and love (to ban) today.
然而，在塑料袋的传奇故事里，真正的英雄（或恶棍，取决于你怎么看）是Gustaf Thulin Sten。作为瑞典Celloplast公司的雇员，Sten想出了在HDPE超薄管的一侧打孔的主意，创造了今天我们所熟知并热爱（或希望禁止）的无处不在的薄膜般的“T恤袋”。
In a 1993 book that claims to reveal the “hidden life of groceries and other secrets of the supermarket,” journalist Vince Staten pinpoints the moment that the global takeover of the plastic bag became inevitable: a 1985 gathering of the New Materials and Profits in Grocery Sacks and Coextrusions Conference at a Holiday Inn in Somerset, New Jersey, at which a representative from Chem Systems announced that plastic bags were 11.5 percent cheaper than paper.
在一本出版于1993年的书里，记者Vince Staten声称揭示了“杂货业的隐秘生活以及超市的其它秘密”。作者指出了塑料袋风靡世界的决定性时刻：1985年，在新泽西州Somerset的假日酒店，举行了一个叫做“杂货袋和压膜袋的新材料和利润大会”的活动。会上，来自Chem Systems的代表宣布塑料袋比纸袋要便宜11.5%。
Just like that, the world changed. Plastic bags were stocked in 10 percent of grocery stores in 1983, according to Plastics World magazine. By 1985 it was 75 percent. “Paper or plastic?” immediately became an everyday question, a punchline, and a source of angst.
就这样，整个世界都变了。根据《塑料世界》杂志的信息，1983年时10%的杂货店备有塑料袋，到了1985年这个数字上升到了75%。 “纸袋还是塑料袋？”立刻成为了日常问句，脍炙人口的妙语，以及忧虑之源。
Almost from the beginning, plastic bags were controversial. After several high-profile suffocation deaths of children, manufacturers worked together to create a public safety campaign, staving off regulation and reducing accidents. As grocers substituted plastic for paper to bolster their bottom lines, suburban shoppers, who preferred to line up flat-bottomed paper bags in the backs of their cars, complained, even as urban shoppers rejoiced at the ability to comfortably and reliably carry more than two bags at a time.
几乎从一开始，塑料袋就备受争议。在数起备受瞩目的儿童窒息死亡事件发生后，塑料袋生产商聚在一起搞了一个公众安全运动，以此来延缓对塑料袋的监管，并减少事故的发生。杂货商用塑料袋代替纸袋以节约成本后，尽管市区购物者因为从此可以舒适稳当地同时手提多个袋子而感到高兴，那些更喜欢在车后摆满平底纸袋的郊区购物者却对此有了怨言。
The booming environmental movement was initially flummoxed. Forest conservation was a big deal in the ’80s, a point in favor of plastic. But fossil fuels were a no-no, so maybe paper was better? Both types of bags at the time were tough to recycle. The debate raged on, leaving eco-conscious shoppers unclear about the best course of action.
蓬勃兴起的环境运动最开始被搞懵了。森林保护在80年代是件大事，使用塑料袋在这方面能得分。但是耗用化石燃料也是要不得的，那么也许纸袋更好？这两种购物袋在当时都不容易回收利用。争论持续升温，让有环保意识的购物者搞不清楚到底哪种选择最好。
Reduce
减少使用
In 2010, Guinness World Records named plastic bags the most ubiquitous consumer item in the world. But peak bag may already be upon us.
2010年，吉尼斯世界纪录把塑料袋确认为世界上最普及的消费品。然而，塑料袋使用的最高峰也许已然临近。
In 2007, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to prohibit plastic bags, citing concerns about water pollution and waste disposal. Chicago, Austin, Portland, and nearly all of Hawaii soon followed suit, chiming in with complaints about wastefulness, climate change, and more.
2007年，出于对水污染和垃圾处理的担忧，旧金山成为了美国第一个禁用塑料袋的城市。随后芝加哥、奥斯丁、波特兰和几乎整个夏威夷都群起效仿，它们纷纷抱怨塑料袋导致浪费、气候变化和其它问题。
Chinese officials banned plastic bags two months before hosting the 2008 Olympics, for the same reason they banned high-emissions vehicles and daytime pajama-wearing-such unsightly displays didn’t match up with the image the People’s Republic wanted to present to the world. In China, they call the floating sacks “white pollution.” South Africans refer to bags snagged in bushes as their “national flower.”
中国官员在2008年奥运会举办前两个月禁止了塑料袋，理由与他们禁止高排放汽车以及白天穿睡衣相同——这些不雅景观与人民共和国想要展现给世界的形象不相符。在中国，人们把漂浮的塑料袋称为“白色污染”。南非人则将缠在灌木丛中的塑料袋称为他们的“国花”。
In Washington, D.C., concern about used plastic bags finding their way down storm drains, through the Anacostia River, and into the Chesapeake Bay was the primary justification for the capital city’s 5-cent bag tax in 2010, under the slogan “Skip the Bag, Save the River.” In 2006, the California Coastal Commission claimed that plastic bags make up 3.8 percent of beach litter, and a few years later the California Ocean Protection Council upped the ante to 8 percent of all coastal trash. Last year the Dallas City Council pinned 5 percent of the area’s refuse on bags.
2010年，首都华盛顿特区对每个塑料袋征税5美分，口号是“救救河流，不用塑料袋”，主要的理论依据是废弃塑料袋会被冲进雨水道，通过阿纳卡斯提亚河进入切萨皮克海湾。2006年，加州海岸委员会声称塑料袋在海滩垃圾中占3.8%，几年后加州海洋保护委员会把塑料袋在所有海滨垃圾的份额提高到8%。去年，达拉斯市议会认定辖区内垃圾的5％由塑料袋构成。
But the definitive American litter study—yep, such a thing exists—reports much lower figures. The 2009 Keep America Beautiful Survey, run by Steven Stein of Environmental Resources Planning, shows that all plastic bags, of which plastic retail bags are only a subset, are just 0.6 percent of visible litter nationwide.
然而关于美国垃圾的权威研究——没错，这种研究确实存在——发布的数字要低很多。2009年，由“环境资源规划”组织的Steven Stein发起的一项名为“保持美国的美”的调查显示，所有塑料袋加在一起仅占了全国可见垃圾的0.6%，而塑料购物袋只是塑料袋中的一小类。
And those California data? They come from the International Coastal Commission (ICC), which the California Coastal Commission notes relies on information “collected by volunteers on one day each year, and is not a scientific assessment.” (This insight, and many others in this story, is derived from a study produced last year by Julian Morris and Brian Seasholes for Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes reason.)
那么加州的数据从何而来？它来自国际海岸委员会（ICC）。加州海岸委员会提到，该数字 “由志愿者每年花一天搜集，并非科学评估”。（这个见解，以及此文中很多其它见解，都来自去年由Julian Morris和Brian Seasholes为“理性基金会”所作的研究，该基金会是一家非营利组织，出版刊物Reason。）
In D.C., a 2008 analysis prepared for the city’s Department of the Environment by the Anacostia Watershed Society found that plastic bags were only the third-largest contributor to litter in the river, after food wrappers and bottles and cans.
在华盛顿特区，2008年一份由“阿纳卡斯提亚流域协会”为市环境部提供的分析报告发现，塑料袋只是河流垃圾的第三大来源，排在食物包装和瓶罐之后。
Stein’s study did find plastic bags in storm drains, but again, they made up only about 1 percent of the total litter.
Stein的研究确实在雨水道中发现了塑料袋，然而，塑料袋同样仅占垃圾总量的1%。
Some plastic bags do find their way into the sea, of course. And one of the other concerns cited for the banning and regulation of plastic grocery bags is the safety of marine wildlife. The Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation is just one organization among many that claim that more than 1 million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from eating or getting entangled in plastic.
当然，有些塑料袋确实进入了海洋。人们禁用或管制塑料购物袋时的忧虑之一，就是海洋野生动物的安全。包括“蓝色大洋海洋保护协会”在内的很多组织声称，每年有超过一百万只鸟和十万以上的海洋哺乳动物以及海龟因为吞食塑料袋或被塑料袋缠绕而死，。
Morris and Seasholes reconstructed an elaborate game of statistical telephone to source this figure back to a study funded by the Canadian government that tracked loss of marine animals in Newfoundland as a result of incidental catch and entanglement in fishing gear from 1981 to 1984. Importantly, this three-decade-old study had nothing to do with plastic bags at all.
针对上述数字，Morris和Seasholes重建了一个复杂的统计学电话游戏【校注：电话游戏即由一个人小声跟下一个人说一句话，不断传递，最终得出荒谬结果】，将其来源追溯到一项由加拿大政府资助的研究。这项研究将纽芬兰的海洋动物减少归咎于1981年至1984年间的误捕和捕鱼装备的缠绕。重要的是，这项三十年前的研究完全和塑料袋无关。
Porpoises and sea turtles are undeniably charismatic megafauna—the pandas of the deep—and it’s understandable that environmental groups would want to parade them around in a bid to drum up sympathy, almost certainly driven by the sincere belief that plastics put the beloved animals at grave risk. But in the end, there’s little evidence that that’s true.
不可否认，鼠海豚和海龟都是极具魅力的巨型海洋动物——它们就像深海中的熊猫——并且，环保团体几乎肯定是受真诚的信念所驱使，认定是塑料袋让这些可爱的动物陷入危险境地，并想拉着它们招摇过市以竭力争取同情，这是可以理解的。但归根到底，没有什么证据证明确有其事。
As David Santillo, a senior biologist with Greenpeace, told The Times of London, “It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags. The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags. With larger mammals it’s fishing gear that’s the big problem. On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue.”
就像绿色和平组织的高级生物学家David Santillo对《泰晤士报》所说的那样，“许多动物被塑料袋害死是不太可能的。证据显示情况恰恰相反。如果我们把重点放在塑料袋上，垃圾废料问题是得不到解决的。对大型哺乳动物来说，捕鱼装备才是大问题。从全球范围来看，塑料袋并不是个问题。”
Reuse
重复利用
But what about larger-scale impacts, such as climate change? Where do grocery bags stack up there? A 2011 study from the U.K.’s Environmental Agency attempted to quantify the emissions footprint both of plastic bags and of their substitutes. Holding the typical HDPE grocery bag up as the standard, researchers found that the common reusable non-woven polypropylene bag—the ubiquitous crinkly plastic tote, typically made with oil—had to be used at least 11 times to hold its own against an HDPE grocery bag. Cotton bags had to be used an amazing 131 times to do the same.
那么大范围的影响，比如气候变化，又如何呢？购物塑料袋与此有何关系？英国环境局在2011年做了一项研究，尝试量化使用塑料袋及其替代品的碳排放量。以普通的高密度聚乙烯（HDPE）购物袋作为比较基准，研究者发现，常见的可重复使用无纺聚丙烯袋——那种四处可见的起皱塑料袋，一般以石油作原料——至少需要重复使用11次才能在排放量上匹敌HDPE购物袋。要达到同样的水平，棉布袋则需重复使用惊人的131次。
In 2007, for a brief moment, the “It bag” wasn’t a $30,000 Hermes Birkin, it was a cotton tote designed by Anya Hindmarch that read: “I’m NOT A Plastic bag.” Celebrities from Ivanka Trump to Keira Knightly were snapped toting the sold-out satchels for glossies like Life&Style and Grazia. While we can never know for sure, it seems wildly unlikely that Ivanka Trump has carried 131 loads of groceries in her life, much less in that particular bag.
在2007年，“It bag”（“当季必备包包”）曾经一度不是价值三万美元的爱马仕铂金包，而是由Anya Hindmarch设计的一款棉布包，上面印着几个字：“我不是塑料袋。”从Ivanka Trump到Keira Knightly等社会名流都拎着这个销售一空的手提包，为诸如Life&Style和Grazia的精美杂志拍定型照。尽管我们永远没法肯定，但看起来Ivanka Trump一辈子曾提过131袋生活杂物的可能性相当小，更不用说用这种小提包了。
What’s more, those U.K. Environmental Agency figures assume the HDPE bag is not being reused. Nor do they account for the energy and materials needed to regularly wash the reusable bags in hot soapy water. Other alternatives did perform somewhat better in the global-warming matchup, including paper bags (which would have to be reused three times to match the single-use HDPE bag’s footprint) and another type of reusable bag made of low-density polyethylene (four times).
此外，上述英国环境局的数字是基于HDPE购物袋不会被重复使用的假设得出的，他们也没有把用热肥皂水定期清洗可重复使用购物袋时所需的能源和材料考虑在内。一些其它替代品确实在防止全球变暖方面中表现更好，包括纸袋（需要重复使用三次才能和一次性HDPE袋在碳排放量上相当）和另一种可重复使用的低密度聚乙烯袋（需要重复使用四次）。
About 65 percent of Americans report that they repurpose their grocery bags for garbage. By contrast, a survey by the marketing research firm Edelman Berland found that consumers reported forgetting their reusable bags on 40 percent of grocery trips and opted for plastic or paper instead.
大约有65%的美国人称他们会用使用过的购物袋装垃圾。与此形成对比的是，由市场研究公司Edelman Berland所做的一项调查发现，消费者称他们去购物时有40%的可能性忘记携带可重复使用的购物袋，最终需要用塑料袋或纸袋来代替。
Prior to the movement to ban plastic bags, many American homes had a nook, cranny, or drawer that functioned as a kind of grocery-sack clown car. It seemed that whatever the size of the container, an infinite number of bags could be stuffed inside. My family called it the bag o’ bags. As in: “Katherine! This mold experiment has gone on long enough! Go get me a bag from the bag o’ bags so that I can throw it away,” or “Karina, you better remember to get a bag from the bag o’ bags for that wet swimsuit, unless you want the books in your backpack to get wet.” If we wound up with an unmanageable surplus, we could just drop the bags at the recycling centers that used to sit in the parking lots of most suburban grocery stores.
在禁用塑料袋运动之前，许多美国家庭都有个角落、缝隙或抽屉，用作放购物袋小丑车。不管那个地方大小如何，似乎总是可以不断地往里面塞袋子。我家称之为“袋之袋”。比如：“凯瑟琳！这东西都生霉很久了！从袋之袋里拿个袋子给我，我好把这玩意丢掉。”，或是“卡琳娜，你要不想把你背包里的书都弄湿，最好记得从袋之袋里拿个袋子来装湿泳衣。”。如果我们有太多用不掉的多余袋子，只要放到以前大多数郊区杂货店的停车场里都有的回收中心去就可以了。
Then there are the frequently unmeasured consumption consequences of the bans themselves. For example, in San Francisco, after the grocery/retail plastic bag ban went into effect in 2007, depriving customers of a source of free bags, sales of still legal, low-density polyethylene plastic bags shot up 400 percent.
禁令本身还有很多尚未搞清的消费后果。举个例子，旧金山对零售购物塑料袋的禁令在2007年生效后，消费者无法再获得免费购物袋了，结果仍旧合法的低密度聚乙烯塑料袋的销量飙升了400%。
Recycle
回收
“It takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce the 100 billion plastic bags that are thrown away in the U.S. every year.” Versions of this claim show up everywhere from New York Times editorials to Save the Bay pamphlets. But the origins of the figures are murky and the dramatic tone is misleading. Even if the number is accurate, it is almost a literal drop in the bucket: Americans consume a total of about 19 million barrels of oil a day.
“在美国，每年一千亿只废弃塑料袋需要耗费1200万桶原油来生产。”这类说法的不同版本出现在从《纽约时报》社论到《拯救海湾》宣传册的各种地方。然而这个数字的原始出处却是模糊不清的，而且其夸张口吻也有误导性。就算这个数字是准确的，这也几乎真正是九牛一毛：美国人每天消费大约1900万桶原油。
But as Morris and Seasholes point out, all that fretting about oil use “is surprising, not least because nearly all HDPE bags are produced from natural gas, not oil. Indeed, between 1981 and 2012, on average only 3.2% of polyethylene bags were made from oil. The reason is simple: it is far less expensive to produce ethylene, the feedstock for polyethylene, from natural gas (methane) than from oil.” While the price of oil has recently declined, the assumption that plastic bags are made primarily from oil remains false.
然而就像Morris和Seasholes指出的那样，这种所有关于原油使用的焦虑“都是令人惊讶的，尤其是因为几乎所有的HDPE袋都是由天然气而非原油制造的。事实上正是这样，在1981年到2012年间，平均只有3.2％的聚乙烯袋由原油制造。原因很简单：用天然气（甲烷）生产乙烯这种制造聚乙烯的原材料要比用原油便宜得多。”尽管原油价格最近下降了，这种认为塑料袋主要由原油制造的想法依然是错误的。
In 2010, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Americans threw away 690,000 tons of HDPE bags. Of those, approximately 30,000 tons were recycled. That means a total of 660,000 tons were discarded, mostly into landfills (approximately 82 percent of non-recovered municipal solid waste goes to landfill; 18 percent is incinerated). That same year, Americans also chucked almost exactly the same amount of “reusable” polypropylene bags (680,000 tons), of which zero were recovered. In other words, those polypropylene reusable bags actually constituted a slightly higher proportion of all bags going to landfills.
根据美国环境保护局的说法，美国人在2010年丢弃了69万吨HDPE袋，其中大约3万吨被回收。这意味着总共有66万吨袋子被废弃，主要是被丢入垃圾填埋场（城市非再生固体废弃物中大约有82％进入垃圾填埋场；另外18%被焚烧）。同年，美国人还丢弃了几乎重量相当的“可重复使用”聚丙烯袋（68万吨），没有任何回收利用。换句话说，在流入垃圾填埋场的袋子里，可重复使用的聚丙烯袋占比事实上还要稍高一些。
In April, NPR’s Planet Money reported on the economics of plastic recycling, and noted that while recycled plastic from bags and sacks was once a profitable industry, times have changed. The prices of oil and gas have fallen, which means it is cheaper to just make new bags rather than undertake the laborious process of recycling the old ones. As Tom Outerbridge, who runs a Brooklyn recycling center called Sims, explained, “We can’t afford to put a lot of time and money into trying to recycle it” if no one’s buying the final product.
今年四月，美国全国公共广播电台的“地球财富”节目报道了塑料回收中的经济学，并指出尽管从袋子中回收塑料以前是一项盈利的事，现在情况已经变了。原油和天然气的价格已经下降，意味着直接生产新的袋子要比通过复杂费力的程序对旧袋子回收利用更便宜。布鲁克林一个叫做Sims的回收中心的运营商Tom Outerbridge解释说，如果没人购买最终产品，“我们就无法在塑料袋回收上投入大量时间和金钱”。
Reject
拒绝
In March, The Washington Post reported on the surprising strength of the plastic bag industry in the face of regulatory onslaught.
今年三月，《华盛顿邮报》报道了塑料袋制造业在凶猛的管制面前所展现出来的惊人力量。
In 2008, officials in the deep blue city of Seattle voted to impose a 20-cent fee on both plastic and paper single- use bags. “There’s a competitive side to seeing who can come up with the most progressive legislation,” city councilman and former local Sierra Club leader Mike O’Brien told The New York Times.
在2008年，深蓝之城西雅图的官员们投票决定对塑料和纸质的一次性袋子收取每个20美分的费用。“这么做有攀比的一面，就是看看谁能搞出最进步主义的立法，”市议员、“塞拉聚乐部”【校注：美国环保组织】在当地的前领导者Mike O’Brien这样告诉《纽约时报》。
But industry rallied before the implementation date, spending $1.4 million on a citywide ballot measure to repeal the fee. The referendum campaign was a success; Seattle voters rejected the surcharge, which would have been the most punitive in the nation, in 2009. Still, three years later, Seattle became the fourth city in Washington State to approve an outright plastic- bag ban, along with a 5-cent fee on paper bags.
但业界在该法规实施之前团结了起来，投入140万美元举行了全市范围的投票表决活动来撤销该收费。这场公决运动成功了；西雅图人投票拒绝了这项本会在2009年成为全国之最的惩罚性额外收费。然而，三年后，西雅图还是成了华盛顿州第四个通过彻底禁用塑料袋的城市，同时还对纸袋征收5美分的费用。
In Dallas, a coalition of plastic bag manufacturers are challenging a 5-cent markup that the city has imposed on single-use bags. Hilex Poly (now Novolex), Superbag Operating, the Inteplast Group, and Advance Polybag argue that the fee is illegal under an obscure Dallas law that states: “A local government or other political subdivision may not adopt an ordinance, rule or regulation to: prohibit or restrict, for solid waste management purposes, the sale or use of a container or package in a manner not authorized by state law; [or] assess a fee or deposit on the sale or use of a container or package.”
在达拉斯，塑料袋生产商联盟正在挑战市政府对一次性袋子每个5美分的收费政策。Helix Ploy（即如今的Novolex），Superbag Operating，Inteplast Group和Advance Polybag这些公司认为收费是非法的，他们的依据是一条模糊的达拉斯的法律：“地方政府或其它政治分区不能实施条例、规则或规定来：出于控制固体废弃物的目的，不经州法律授权，禁止或限制容器或包装的贩卖或使用；（或）对贩卖或使用容器或包装进行收费或收取保证金。”
In Georgia, the state Senate got a little meta, passing a ban on bag bans last session, which would have pre-emptively prevented restrictions. While the bill failed in the House, it may prove to be a model for other state pre-emptions around the country.
在佐治亚，州参议院的做法有点元规则的性质，在上个会期通过了一项对塑料袋禁令的禁令，该禁令将能预防性地阻止禁塑令。这个法案虽未能在州众院中通过，但可能在全国范围成为预防性立法的典型，被其它州效仿。
Ground Zero of the plastic wars, unsurprisingly, is California. Last year, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed a statewide ban against plastic grocery bags that was scheduled to take effect this July 1. But the implementation has been stalled, thanks to 800,000 signatories to a petition circulated by the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a new group funded by plastics manufacturers. Voters will now have to ratify the ban on their 2016 ballots for it to go into effect. “This is a cynical ploy by out-of-state interests desperate to delay a ban already adopted in more than 100 communities across California,” a spokesperson for Brown told the Associated Press.
不出所料，塑料袋之战的中心战场是加州。去年，民主党州长Jerry Brown签署了一项在全州禁止塑料杂货袋的法令，原计划在今年七月一日投入实施。然而由于塑料品生产商资助的一个新团体“美国进步派袋子联盟”发起的一项请愿获得了80万个签名支持，禁令未能如期实施。现在选民只有等到2016年进行投票批准，禁令才能实施。“这是州外利益集团耍的冷漠自私的手段，他们拼命要推迟这项已被全加州超过一百个社区采用的禁令”，Brown的发言人告诉美联社。
Of course, if there’s some banning going on, you can always rely on Congress to muscle in on the action. Rep. James P. Moran (D–Va.) has repeatedly introduced a bill to create a national 5-cent tax on all disposable plastic or paper bags supplied by stores to customers. The bill typically dies quietly in committee, but perhaps Moran was hoping that, as Gandhi famously didn’t say: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win.”
当然，哪里有禁令，哪里就会有国会伸手掺和进来。来自弗吉尼亚的民主党众议员James P. Moran已多次提出一项在全国范围内对所有由商店向顾客提供的一次性塑料袋或纸袋征收5美分税的法案。一如既往，法案在委员会无声无息地胎死腹中，但也许Moran希望的是，就像那句甘地没说过的名言：“一开始他们无视你，然后他们嘲笑你，接下去他们攻击你，再然后你就胜利了。”
Regurgitate
反刍
【译注：regurgitate也有呕吐的意思，这里可能是一语双关：重复使用的袋子有时脏得令人作呕。】
As I write this, a load of reusable grocery bags is tumbling around in my dryer. In the course of researching this article, I got so thoroughly grossed out by the malevolent horror lurking in my pantry that I had to stop writing and start washing.
就在我写此文时，一堆可重复使用的杂货袋正在我的烘干机内翻滚。在对此文的内容进行调研时，我被潜伏在我的餐具室内的可怕的脏东西彻底恶心到了，不得不停止写作开始清洗。
I may love plastic bags, but I’m not immune to cultural and economic pressure, so when I remember to, I tote my reusable bags to the store like a good little yuppie. But this ostensibly modern act brings me back to conditions a little too reminiscent of the sub-hygienic reality faced by my great-great-grandmother, with her blood-and-crumb-covered reusable canvas wrapper.
我也许喜欢塑料袋，但我并不能对文化和经济压力免疫，因此我要是想得起来，就会像个善良的雅皮士一样带着可重复使用的袋子去商店购物。然而这个表面上现代的行为会把我带回到不太卫生的现实情境，非常容易让我想起我的曾曾祖母和她那满是血污和面包屑的可重复使用的帆布袋子。
If you’re like most people, here’s what you have probably done at least once: Put a leaky package of chicken in your cloth or plastic tote. Then go home, empty the bag, crumple it up, and toss it in the trunk of your car to fester. A week later, you go shopping again and throw some veggies you’re planning to eat raw into the same bag. Cue diarrhea.
如果你和多数人一样，那么你肯定经历过下述事情：把一包汁水滴漏的鸡肉放进你的布袋或塑料包中。然后回家，拿出鸡肉，把袋子揉成一团扔进车的后备箱让其发霉发臭。一周后，你又去购物，把一些你准备生吃的蔬菜丢进同一只袋子。腹泻就是这么来的。
A 2011 survey published in the journal Food Protection Trends found coliform bacteria in fully half of the reusable shopping bags tested in a random survey of shoppers in Arizona and California. The same 2014 Edelman Berland study that found consumers frequently forgot their bags also unearthed the fact that only 18 percent of shoppers reported cleaning their bags “once a week or more.” An article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases traced a 2010 outbreak of norovirus to nine members of an Oregon soccer team who had touched or eaten food stored in a contaminated reusable bag.
根据2011年一项发表在《食品保护趋势》杂志上的调查，在对亚利桑那和加州的购物者进行随机调查时，他们发现有足足半数的可重复使用购物袋中存在大肠型细菌。前面提到的2014年Edelman Berland那项发现消费者经常忘带购物袋的研究，还发现了这样一个事实：只有18%的购物者声称他们每周清洁购物袋“至少一次以上”。一篇登在《传染疾病杂志》上的文章发现，2010年诺如病毒爆发的起因是九名俄勒冈足球队员接触或食用了存放在被污染的可重复使用袋子中的食物。
Your cute reusable tote decorated with whimsical watercolors of eggplants may actually be causing those stomach cramps.
你肚子疼的罪魁祸首，事实上也许是你那装点着奇形怪状的茄子水印、可爱无比的可重复使用袋呢。
Reconsider
重新考量
Set your mind back to 1999, before our current wave of bag crackdowns, but well after the “plastic” answer to “paper or plastic?” began giving environmentalists the tremors. In that year’s Oscar-winning American Beauty, an ambitious young filmmaker within the dull confines of suburbia captures an iconic image of a plastic sack—that product of banal late-capitalist excess—twirling artistically in the wind.
把思绪转回到1999年，那时还没有目前这波对塑料袋的打击取缔。但面对“纸袋还是塑料袋？”这一问题，回答“塑料袋”已经开始让环保主义者战栗。在那年获得奥斯卡奖的电影《美国丽人》中，一位雄心勃勃的年轻制片人在郊区生活的无聊框架内抓住了一幅具有象征意义的塑料袋的画面——晚期资本主义无聊纵欲的产品——在风中艺术地旋转。
“And this bag was just dancing with me,” he says dreamily. “Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For 15 minutes. That’s the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever.”
“这袋子只是在和我跳舞，”他梦幻般地说道。“像一个小孩恳求我和它玩耍。玩15分钟。那天，我意识到，在所有一切事物背后，有个完整的生命，而且有种不可思议的博爱的力量要我知道没有理由感到害怕，永远都没有。”
Though it was meant as irony, there was an essential (if accidental) truth behind the speech. The technology behind plastic grocery bags is so useful it won a Nobel Prize. Employing an unimaginably small amount of base material, manufacturers can create tools of surprising strength and durability. Far from being the environmental threat activists make them out to be, plastic bags are not particularly to blame for clogged sewers, choked rivers, asphyxiated sea animals, or global warming. Instead, they are likely our best bet for carrying all of our junk in a responsible manner.
尽管本意是为了讽刺，这段话背后却有一种基本的（也许是凑巧的）真相。塑料购物袋背后的科技是如此有用，使其赢得了诺贝尔奖。利用一些用量小到无法想象的基本材料，制造者可以创造出具有惊人强度和耐用性的工具。与环保威胁论积极分子所描绘的形象大相径庭的是，实际上塑料袋并未导致下水道堵塞、河流填塞、海洋动物窒息或全球变暖。相反，如果我们要负责任装走垃圾，它们可能是最佳选择。
Don’t believe the haters. Plastic bags are good for you.
别相信那些心怀怨恨的人。塑料袋是个好东西。
翻译：混乱阈值 （@混乱阈值）
校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy），小册子（@昵称被抢的小册子）
编辑：辉格@whigzhou