VOA标准英语2012--Born Again: The Reincarnation of a Plastic Bottle

 

Born Again: The Reincarnation of a Plastic Bottle

We’ve seen bottles on shelves, tossed into bins¹, bundled into bales and shredded² and dumped into bags. This whole process spans hundreds of kilometers, and now, the rebirth of a plastic bottle.

“This is how it comes to us and we reprocess it into some other product,” said Mark Rath, a manager at Peninsula Packaging. It’s here that pieces of plastic become consumer-ready products like carry-out trays at grocery stores and cafeterias. “This will become a plastic sheet, and eventually a thermoform product.” 

Meaning basically that this part of the plant melts and flattens³ plastic so that another part can shape and mold it. But the process is a little more complex…

“We take the clear chips like this, and it goes into an oven, and it crystallizes. It cooks for about 3 to 4 hours in that oven,” said Rath. 

Now… that’s at nearly 200 degrees celsius⁴. And when the goop comes out they form the plastic into food packaging. 

“In order to do that you need to squeeze it out into a thin, wide sheet,” said Rath. 

That squeezing takes place in several stations throughout the plant. The plastic is then wrapped, rolled and delivered to what’s called a “thermoform station.” “We unwrap the plastic… into a very long oven where we heat it, again, and then we’ll form it in a forming station. We’ll follow it through and see what happens to it.”

What happens to it involves a vacuum, lots of pressure and believe it or not, more recycling.

“If you could imagine that you’re cutting cookies out of a piece of dough⁵ on the counter… you get a round cookie and you have all this dough left over... we put it back through; grind it up into little pieces and put it back through the extrusion⁶ process,” said Rath. 

In the end, all of the plastics in this plant become some sort of container in their next lives.

“That’ll end up being a fresh-cut-salad base. Not sure where it goes, but it’ll end up some place with celery and carrots and tomatoes,” he said. 

It has taken several days, most of it in delivery trucks, but a plastic bottle like the one we bought in Washington has become a salad tray in North Carolina.

Dozens of workers. Hundreds of kilometers. And tons of plastic. All pieces of a waste industry that seems to waste as little as possible. 

1 bins   

n.大储藏箱( bin的名词复数 )；宽口箱（如面包箱，垃圾箱等）v.扔掉，丢弃( bin的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Garbage from all sources was deposited in bins on trolleys. 来自各方的垃圾是装在手推车上的垃圾箱里的。 来自辞典例句
• Would you be pleased at the prospect of its being on sale in dump bins? 对于它将被陈列在倾销箱中抛售这件事，你能欣然接受吗？ 来自辞典例句

2 shredded   

shred的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Serve the fish on a bed of shredded lettuce. 先铺一层碎生菜叶，再把鱼放上，就可以上桌了。
• I think Mapo beancurd and shredded meat in chilli sauce are quite special. 我觉得麻婆豆腐和鱼香肉丝味道不错。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 flattens   

变平，使（某物）变平( flatten的第三人称单数 )； 彻底打败某人，使丢脸； 停止增长（或上升）； （把身体或身体部位）紧贴…

参考例句：

• After Oxford the countryside flattens out. 过了牛津以远乡村逐渐平坦。
• The graph flattens out gradually after a steep fall. 图表上的曲线突降之后逐渐趋于平稳。

4 Celsius   

adj.摄氏温度计的，摄氏的

参考例句：

• The temperature tonight will fall to seven degrees Celsius.今晚气温将下降到七摄氏度。
• The maximum temperature in July may be 36 degrees Celsius.七月份最高温度可能达到36摄氏度。

5 dough   

n.生面团；钱，现款

参考例句：

• She formed the dough into squares.她把生面团捏成四方块。
• The baker is kneading dough.那位面包师在揉面。

6 extrusion   

n.挤出；推出；喷出；赶出

参考例句：

• The dough was formed into tubular grains by extrusion. 药团通过挤压而成管状药。 来自辞典例句
• Some other materials are added to facilitate extrusion and other manufacturing operations. 添加其它的一些物质是为了使挤压和别的加工过程更为方便。 来自辞典例句