回收的塑料瓶到哪里去了?試著看看你的車下面

回收的塑料瓶到哪里去了?試著看看你的車下面。

Every minute, people around the world purchase 1 million plastic bottles, which adds up to roughly 526 billion bottles every year. Much of this plastic ends up discarded in landfills, rivers or oceans, often with devastating effects for wildlife. Many people are now trying to cut down on plastic use, while also turning these single-use plastics into something useful — like auto parts.

每分鐘，世界各地的人們購買100萬個(gè)塑料瓶，這意味著每年大約有5260億瓶。大部分塑料最終被丟棄在垃圾填埋場(chǎng)、河流或海洋中，通常對(duì)野生動(dòng)物造成毀滅性的影響?，F(xiàn)在很多人都在努力減少塑料的使用，同時(shí)把這些一次性塑料變成有用的東西——比如汽車零部件。

The Ford Motor Company has used recycled plastic as far back as the 1990s. Today, in an effort to reduce its carbon footprint, the company is transforming recycled plastic into vehicle parts, specifically underbody shields on all cars and SUVs, as well as wheel liners on F-Series trucks.

福特汽車公司早在20世紀(jì)90年代就開始使用回收塑料。如今，為了減少碳足跡，該公司正在將回收塑料轉(zhuǎn)化為汽車零部件，尤其是所有汽車和suv的車身下護(hù)罩，以及f系列卡車的輪轂內(nèi)襯。

“The underbody shield is a large part, and for a part that big, if we use solid plastic, it would likely weigh three times as much,” says Thomas Sweder, design engineer with Ford Motor Company. “We look for the most durable and highest-performing materials to work with to make our parts, and in this case, we are also creating many environmental benefits.”

福特汽車公司設(shè)計(jì)工程師托馬斯•斯維德表示:“車身下部的護(hù)罩是一個(gè)很大的部件，對(duì)于這么大的一個(gè)部件，如果我們使用固體塑料，它的重量可能是它的三倍。”“我們尋找最耐用、性能最高的材料來制造我們的零部件，在這種情況下，我們也創(chuàng)造了許多環(huán)境效益。”

Recycled plastic is ideal for automotive parts due to its light weight, which offers additional benefits such as improving a vehicle's aerodynamics and reducing cabin noise. In fact, the all-new 2020 Ford Escape boasts an exceptionally quiet environment, thanks to plastics.

回收塑料由于重量輕，是汽車零部件的理想材料，它提供了額外的好處，如改善汽車的空氣動(dòng)力學(xué)和降低機(jī)艙噪音。事實(shí)上，全新的2020款福特Escape擁有一個(gè)特別安靜的環(huán)境，這要?dú)w功于塑料。

The use of plastics in vehicle parts has grown exponentially in the past decade, especially in underbody shields. Ford estimates it uses around 1.2 billion recycled plastic bottles every year — that’s about 250 bottles per vehicle on average.

在過去的十年里，塑料在汽車零部件上的應(yīng)用呈指數(shù)級(jí)增長，尤其是在車身下部的防護(hù)罩上。福特估計(jì)，它每年使用大約12億個(gè)回收塑料瓶，平均每輛車使用大約250瓶。

How exactly does your plastic water bottle turn into an aerodynamic auto part? After you toss the bottle into the recycling bin, it's eventually combined with thousands of others and shredded into tiny pieces. These pieces are then sold to a supplier, who turns them into a fiber by melting and extruding them. This fiber is mixed with other elements in a textile process, then used to create a sheet of material that can be formed into vehicle parts.

你的塑料水瓶是如何變成空氣動(dòng)力汽車部件的?當(dāng)你把瓶子扔進(jìn)回收箱后，它最終會(huì)和其他成千上萬的瓶子混合在一起，變成碎片。然后這些碎片被賣給供應(yīng)商，供應(yīng)商通過熔化和擠壓將它們變成纖維。這種纖維在紡織過程中與其他元素混合，然后用來制造一種可以制成汽車部件的材料。

With one of the largest companies in the United States committed to working with recycled plastics, there’s hope others will follow suit. More than 8 million pieces of plastic pollution find their way into our oceans every day, and that number is still increasing. Finding new and innovative ways to recycle and reuse single-use plastics is essential for our planet and its inhabitants.

美國最大的公司之一致力于回收塑料，希望其他公司也能效仿。每天有超過800萬的塑料污染進(jìn)入我們的海洋，而且這個(gè)數(shù)字還在增加。尋找新的和創(chuàng)新的方法來回收和再利用一次性塑料對(duì)我們的地球和它的居民是至關(guān)重要的。

“Ford is among the leaders when it comes to using recycled materials such as this, and we do it because it makes sense technically and economically as much as it makes sense for the environment,” Sweder says. “This material meets all of our robust specifications for durability and performance.”

Sweder說:“在使用這類回收材料方面，福特處于領(lǐng)先地位，我們這樣做是因?yàn)樗诩夹g(shù)和經(jīng)濟(jì)上都有意義，就像它對(duì)環(huán)境有意義一樣。”“這種材料符合我們所有的耐用性和性能指標(biāo)。”