VOA慢速英語(yǔ):Could Waste Plastic Reduce Our Need for Oil?

[00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.14]this is the Technology Report in Special English. [00:07.01]The United States Environmental Protection Agency [00:11.38]says only seven percent of plastic waste [00:15.41]in the United States is recycled each year. [00:19.74]A new company in northern New York says [00:23.10]it can increase that percentage. [00:26.23]It also says it can help the United States [00:29.84]reduce the amount of oil it imports. [00:33.32]The company has a machine it calls the "plastic-eating monster." [00:39.02]Every hour, thousands of kilograms of milk jugs, [00:43.90]water bottles, and grocery bags are fed into the machine. [00:49.25]The plastic waste comes from landfills across the United States. [00:55.46]John Bordnyniuk runs the company, called JBI. [01:00.27]"Basically they've been mining their own piles for us [01:03.11]and sending them here." [01:04.19]Mr. Bordyniuk has invented a new process [01:07.30]for turning plastic into fuel. [01:11.66]First, many different kinds of unwashed plastics are melted together. [01:17.87]"The viscosity is close to what milk would be like. [01:20.71]Almost like when you're heating milk on the stove. [01:22.42]Looks exactly like that, except its black." [01:24.44]Mr. Bordyniuk uses a special chemical to turn the fluid into a vapor. [01:30.79]This reduces the plastic to its most basic elements. [01:36.24]"Plastics are just long hydrocarbon chains. [01:38.50]What we're doing is re-forming them into links [01:41.11]and chains that we want so they have a high fuel value." [01:43.71]Eight percent of the recycled plastic is used to run the system. [01:49.16]Independent testers say eighty-six percent of [01:53.88]what goes in comes out as fuel. [01:57.17]Bob Molodynia helps run the company. [02:01.32]He watches as the plastic-eating machine pours a thin, [02:06.07]brown liquid into an oil barrel. [02:09.25]"You could tap this right now and this is ready to go. [02:12.06]That's a number six fuel, that's what a lot of like US Steel uses, [02:15.85]a lot of major companies, [02:17.38]that's what they pay the big bucks for, right there." [02:19.99]JBI produces several thousand liters of fuel a day. [02:25.32]It creates different grades of fuel for different industries. [02:30.18]It sells the fuel for up to one hundred dollars a barrel. [02:35.03]Each barrel costs about ten dollars to produce. [02:39.70]John Bordyniuk believes plastics [02:42.85]will become an important source of fuel for the United States. [02:47.46]He says this will reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil [02:52.99]and reduce the amount of plastic waste in its landfills. [02:58.33]Scientists say plastic-to-oil technology is still new and developing. [03:05.93]They say it is not yet known if the process is environmentally friendly. [03:12.50]And some question whether turning plastic into oil [03:17.43]can even be considered "recycling." [03:21.04]Carson Maxted is with the publication Resource Recycling, [03:26.87]a magazine that reports on the plastic recycling industry. [03:31.39]He says because there is a lot of plastic waste [03:36.26]and a great demand for oil, JBI's recycling technology [03:41.59]may create great changes in both industries. [03:45.32]"So they're getting value from something [03:47.20]that would otherwise go to the landfill, [03:48.38]things that wouldn't be accepted into a recycler."

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