正文文本

At the four-day event this week, 13-year-old Arlian Ecker shared with the audience his experience trying to get other young people thinking about the problem of plastic waste.
"So when I was telling kids that I want to make a film about sea turtles dying from plastic, a kid came up to me and asked me: why do you want to save the animals? They are just stupid for eating these plastics. At that second, I thought what can I say to make people care. Shortly after, I found that a study came out from the Australian University of Newcastle showing that each person eat one credit card of plastics every single day. Plastic exposure harms our immune and reproductive system, the liver, the kidney and even causes cancer."
Ecker, who's known online as Plastic Free Boy, is from Byron Bay in New South Wales. Growing up in a coastal city, he witnessed the impact of plastic pollution to marine life. So he and his mother started to go around the city to raise awareness of young people about this issue.
He's one of many young people in Australia urging the public to take actions against plastic pollution.
Australia is blessed with beautiful beaches and diverse marine life. At the same time, its consumption of plastic is alarming. Australians used 3.5 million tonnes of plastic between 2016 and 2017, and less than 12 percent of it was recycled. The majority of the plastic waste was shipped overseas. But with countries like China and Indonesia starting to turn down imports of waste, the country has to figure out how to deal with this massive and growing problem.

Anna Reynolds is the mayor of Hobart in Tasmania. At the forum, she said that her city is phasing out single-use plastics by next year.
"Something very exciting that is happening in Hobart is we are introducing a by-law for our city to ban single-use plastic containers from our city businesses. So in one-year time, they will need to move to completely compostable containers. If this coffee container is plastic, the companies, all the coffee shops will need to use compostable cups."
Meanwhile, some other people are finding way to bring more plastic into the circular economy. One of them is Mark Combe, whose company is recycling industrial plastic waste. The waste is turned into reinforcement material for roads.
"We take plastic waste and convert it to concrete reinforcing fibers called micro plastic fibres, which replaces your normal shrinkage mesh or reinforcement bar. (It will achieve) a 90 percent reduction in CO2 (and lower costs by) 3 to 5 percent. And you get double production in a day."
Combe said that about 50 city councils in Australia are now using this material for sidewalks and driveways.
Adrian Schrinner, who is the mayor of Brisbane, is calling for everyone to get involved in the battle against plastic waste.
"One of the things is really important to know. Governments can do all type of things. We can sell all type of things. But in the end, sustainability happens in households and in business."
For CRI, this is Feifei in Brisbane.

参考译文

在本周为期四天的活动中，13岁的尔连·艾克与参会者分享了他试图让其他年轻人思考塑料废物问题的经历。
“当我告诉其他孩子我想拍一部纪录片，来讲述塑料是如何危害海龟的时候，有个孩子问我：‘你为什么想救这些动物呢？它们吃塑料是它们自己的问题’。于是我就开始思考如何才能让大家重视（塑料污染）。我看到澳大利亚纽卡斯尔大学的一项研究表明，每个人每天要吃掉一个信用卡大小的塑料。塑料带来的污染已经开始损害到我们人类的免疫和生殖系统，破坏了我们肝、肾，甚至会导致癌症。”
艾克在网上被称为“无塑料男孩”，他来自新南威尔士州拜伦湾。因为在海边长大，他看到了塑料为海洋环境和海洋生物带来的危害。因此，他同他的母亲一起在拜伦港四处奔走，提高年轻人对这一问题的认识。
尔连·艾克只是澳大利亚国内众多敦促公众采取行动防止塑料污染的年轻人的一个缩影。
澳大利亚四面环海，海洋不仅赐予了澳大利亚美丽的海滩，还有丰富的渔业资源。同时，澳大利亚也是一个塑料制品的消费大国。仅在2016至2017年一年的时间，澳大利亚就使用了350万吨的塑料制品，其中仅有不到12%被回收利用，其余大部分都被运往海外。但是随着中国、印度尼西亚等国家拒绝接受塑料垃圾进口，澳大利亚也被迫要自己想办法来处理这一庞大且不断增长的问题。
安娜·雷诺兹是澳大利亚塔斯马尼亚州首府霍巴特的市长。她在论坛上表示，一年后霍巴特市内将完全禁止使用任何一次性塑料包装。
“霍巴特市正在积极推进一项法规，禁止商家和企业使用一次性塑料包装。一年后，他们必须使用可降解的材料，比如像一次性咖啡杯的盖子，明年霍巴特所有的咖啡店必须要使用可降解的咖啡杯盖。”
与此同时，其他人正在寻找将更多塑料融入循环经济的方法。马克·库姆就是这其中的一员，他的公司正在回收工业塑料废品。这些塑料废品再加工后可以替代作为路面混凝土的加固材料。
“我们把塑料垃圾重新利用，制作成混凝土中的加固材料，我们叫它‘微型塑料纤维’，用来替代平时使用的加固材料。这种塑料纤维可以把生产过程中产生的二氧化碳减少90%，同时成本可以降低3%至5%。而且施工效率反而可以翻一番。”
库姆说，现在澳大利亚大约有50个市议会将这种材料用于人行道和车道。
布里斯班市市长安德里安·思瑞纳呼吁所有人参与打击塑料垃圾的斗争。
“有件事非常重要。政府可以推出各种举措，宣传各种观点。但是最终需要每个人、每个家庭、每个企业将环境保护变成实际行动。”
CRI新闻，菲菲（音译）布里斯本报道。

重点讲解

重点讲解：
1. go around 造访；拜访；
It's not a bad idea to go around a bit and gain experience.
到各处走走，见识见识也是好的。
2. turn down 拒绝(某人或其请求、提议等)；
There's no reason whatsoever to turn down this suggestion.
没有任何理由拒绝这个建议。
3. phase out 逐步淘汰；逐步放弃；
The army plans to phase out the equipment as it becomes obsolete.
军队计划淘汰这些设备，因为它们已经报废了。
4. get involved in 卷入的；参与的；与…有密切关联的；
You can make new friends if you get involved in group activities.
如果参与团体活动，你会结交新朋友。