时间:2019-01-13 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2012年(六月)


英语课

 


Born Again: The Reincarnation of a Plastic Bottle



We’ve seen bottles on shelves, tossed into bins 1, bundled into bales and shredded 2 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 flattens 3 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 celsius 4. 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 dough 5 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 extrusion 6 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. 




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 )
  • 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
shred的过去式和过去分词
  • 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》
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…
  • 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。
adj.摄氏温度计的,摄氏的
  • 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。
n.生面团;钱,现款
  • 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。
n.挤出;推出;喷出;赶出
  • 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
学英语单词
Abdel
acceleration of ripening
additional advance
anecdotically
antiriot ammunition
apical bud
arecaceaes
augelli
average repair
Bankia spengler
bankruptcy administrator
basic lead sulphate
bilge logs
booster inoculation
bored shitless
boringly
chain and sprocket drive
Chalkedon
checking off symbol
CLMW
course-stability
cross rod
Curley
damper segment
declaratory judgments
deflection calculation
delivered free to destination
dietary-supplement
dress in
dust crops with an insecticide
emince
enterouterine anus
equitangential
faralatrioside
farbs
finely divided scale
folia vermis
heavy work
helius (helius) minusculus
Hose Connectors
hyperhomocysteinemic
intermolecular respiration
lava column
lead number
lends out
lenticel(le)
lywallzyme
macnee
magnitude spectrum
master screw
max sth out
mellower
memory error report analysis
movable appendage
naked-flame mine
nickel-vanadium steel
nominal ocular hazard area
oculometry
one pack
ordinary wheel
organizational climate index
over-grateful
over-indulged
overtowered
pattern representation
phenoxathin
phenylphosphine
pick-up attachment
pilot flame burner
pipeline stopcock
plash
pot-holder
preservative substance
pressure admission chamber
pressure of blast
Prohepes
pseudodiploidy
r.d
ramming up
rankine thermometric scale
riborg
righi-leduc effect
roricon
sclenchyma
self-illuminating sight
selfcontradictory
sniper
sousant
Subhanallah
sukhooei
Swap Curve
tahsildars
thermo anelasticity
three stages fluidized-bed dryer
toner concentration
unkissing
unvote
upright drill
visual agnosia
Wiener schnitzel
with a swing in it
worldless