显然，塑料袋的发明是为了拯救地球

It comes as no surprise that plastic nowadays is seen as the planet’s number one enemy. Plastic is piling up at landfills, it has polluted rivers, seas and oceans and it has even infiltrated our bodies as well. However, no matter how counterintuitive it may sound, plastic bags were actually created to save the planet. That’s what the son of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin who created them in 1959 says. Plastic bags were developed as an alternative to paper bags, whose production resulted in forests being chopped down. The new alternative proposed longer durability, which meant that they could be used over and over again – many more times than a paper bag could handle.

如今塑料被视为地球的头号敌人，这并不奇怪。垃圾填埋场的塑料堆积如山，污染了河流、海洋，甚至渗透到我们的身体里。然而，无论听起来多么违反直觉，塑料袋实际上是用来拯救地球的。这是瑞典工程师斯滕·古斯塔夫·图林的儿子在1959年创造的。塑料袋作为纸袋的替代品被开发出来，纸袋的生产导致森林被砍伐。新的替代方案提出了更长的耐用性，这意味着它们可以反复使用——比一个纸袋能承受的次数多得多。

Originally, plastic bags were created to help save the planet

最初，塑料袋是用来拯救地球的

Image credits: dcaloren

However, we just became lazy. Instead of using and re-using the same bag over and over again, we got used to getting rid of them. Last year, National Geographic has reported that somewhere around 40 percent of plastic produced is packaging – which is used just once and then discarded. The son of the inventor of plastic bags told the media: “To my dad, the idea that people would simply throw these away would be bizarre. He always carried [a plastic bag] in his pocket folded up. You know what we’re all being encouraged to do today, which is to take your bags back to the shop, he was doing back in the ’70s and ’80s, just naturally, because, well, why wouldn’t you?”

然而，我们只是变得懒惰。我们不再一次又一次地使用同一个袋子，而是习惯了丢弃它们。去年，《国家地理》杂志报道称，大约40%的塑料制品是包装材料，只使用一次就被丢弃。这位塑料袋发明者的儿子在接受媒体采访时说:“对我爸爸来说，人们会把塑料袋随手扔掉的想法很奇怪。他总是把(一个塑料袋)放在折叠的口袋里。你知道我们今天都被鼓励去做什么，那就是把你的袋子拿回商店，他在70年代和80年代就这么做了，很自然，因为，嗯，你为什么不这么做呢?”

Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin created them back in 1959

瑞典工程师Sten Gustaf Thulin早在1959年就创造了它们

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Plastic bags were patented by a company called Celloplast and by the middle of the 1960s, they were actively replacing paper and cloth alternatives in Europe. Fast forward to 1979, plastic bags already accounted for 80 percent of Europe’s bag market. At the beginning of the 1980s, two of the biggest US supermarket chains – Kroger and Safeway – switched to plastic bags. By the end of the 1980s, plastic bags replaced paper ones around the whole world.

塑料袋被一家名为Celloplast的公司申请了专利，到20世纪60年代中期，塑料袋在欧洲积极地取代了纸张和布料。到了1979年，塑料袋已经占据了欧洲塑料袋市场的80%。上世纪80年代初，美国两大连锁超市——克罗格(Kroger)和西夫韦(Safeway)——改用塑料袋。到20世纪80年代末，全世界的塑料袋取代了纸袋。

They were supposed to be re-used numerous times, unfortunately, that isn’t the case

它们应该被多次重复使用，不幸的是，事实并非如此

Image credits: Alan Denney

According to the same report by National Geographic, in 2018, shoppers in the United States used almost one plastic bag per resident per day, whereas shoppers in Denmark used an average of four plastic bags a year. Whereas according to the UN, plastic bags are now produced at a rate of one trillion a year! Therefore, many countries are now banning plastic bags, with Bangladesh being the first one having banned them back in 2002. Since then, more than two dozen countries have followed suit. However, one of the biggest problems is that the majority of plastic bags are not recycled and end up in landfills, where they take up to 1,000 years to degrade.

根据国家地理杂志的同一份报告，在2018年，美国的购物者平均每人每天使用一个塑料袋，而丹麦的购物者平均每年使用四个塑料袋。然而根据联合国的数据，现在塑料袋的生产速度是每年一万亿!因此，许多国家现在都禁止使用塑料袋，孟加拉国是第一个在2002年禁止使用塑料袋的国家。从那时起，二十多个国家纷纷效仿。然而，最大的问题之一是，大多数塑料袋没有被回收，最终被扔进了垃圾填埋场，在那里它们需要1000年才能降解。

However, experts say that a plastic bag can be a greener alternative than a paper or cotton one

然而，专家表示，塑料袋可能是比纸或棉袋子更环保的选择

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However, according to experts, alternatives to plastic bags are not necessarily more environmentally friendly. While opting for paper and cotton bags would technically reduce waste, they have other important environmental effects. UK Environment Agency suggests that a paper bag has to be used at least three times to be as “green” as a plastic bag that is being recycled. This is because producing paper bags requires more energy and water while they’re also heavier than plastic bags, which makes them more expensive to transport. As for cotton bags – they need to be used at least 131 times to be as environmentally friendly as plastic bags.

然而，据专家说，塑料袋的替代品不一定更环保。虽然纸袋子和棉袋子在技术上可以减少浪费，但它们还有其他重要的环境影响。英国环境署建议，一个纸袋至少要用三次才能达到塑料袋的“绿色”程度。这是因为生产纸袋需要更多的能源和水，同时它们也比塑料袋重，这使得它们的运输成本更高。至于棉袋，它们需要至少使用131次才能达到塑料袋的环保效果。