2019年CRI Brisbane forum on city development: calls for actions against plastic

 

The 2019 Asia Pacific Cities Summit and Mayors' Forum¹ has wrapped up in the Australian city of Brisbane. Governments and representatives from companies across the Asia Pacific region gathered there to discuss municipal development, including the problem of waste management.

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 coastal² city, he witnessed the impact of plastic pollution to marine³ life. So he and his mother started to go around the city to raise awareness⁴ 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 fibers⁵ called micro plastic fibres, which replaces your normal shrinkage mesh⁶ 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."

1 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

2 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

3 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

4 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

5 fibers   

光纤( fiber的名词复数 )； （织物的）质地； 纤维，纤维物质

参考例句：

• Thesolution of collagen-PVA was wet spined with the sodium sulfate as coagulant and collagen-PVA composite fibers were prepared. 在此基础上，以硫酸钠为凝固剂，对胶原-PVA共混溶液进行湿法纺丝，制备了胶原-PVA复合纤维。
• Sympathetic fibers are distributed to all regions of the heart. 交感神经纤维分布于心脏的所有部分。

6 mesh   

n.网孔，网丝，陷阱；vt.以网捕捉，啮合，匹配；vi.适合； [计算机]网络

参考例句：

• Their characters just don't mesh.他们的性格就是合不来。
• This is the net having half inch mesh.这是有半英寸网眼的网。