We’ve all been told that we should recycle plastic bottles and containers. But what actually happens to the plastic if we just throw it away? Emma Bryce traces the life cycles of three different plastic bottles, shedding light on the dangers these disposables present to our world.
Lesson by Emma Bryce, animation by Sharon Colman.
Lesson by Emma Bryce, animation by Sharon Colman.
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LearningTranscript
00:00This is the story of three plastic bottles, empty and discarded.
00:11Their journeys are about to diverge,
00:14with outcomes that impact nothing less than the fate of the planet.
00:18But they weren't always this way.
00:20To understand where these bottles end up, we must first explore their origins.
00:26The heroes of our story were conceived in this oil refinery.
00:29Plastic in their bodies was formed by chemically bonding oil and gas molecules together
00:35to make monomers.
00:37In turn, these monomers were bonded into long polymer chains to make plastic,
00:43in the form of millions of pellets.
00:46Those were melted at manufacturing plants and reformed in molds
00:50to create the resilient material that makes up the triplets' bodies.
00:55Machines filled the bottles with sweet, bubbly liquid,
00:58and they were then wrapped, shipped, bought, opened, consumed, and unceremoniously discarded.
01:05And now here they lie, poised at the edge of the unknown.
01:10Bottle One, like hundreds of millions of tons of his plastic brethren, ends up in a landfill.
01:16This huge dump expands each day as more trash comes in and continues to take up space.
01:23As plastics sit there, being compressed amongst layers of other junk,
01:28rainwater flows through the waste and absorbs the water-soluble compounds it contains.
01:34And some of those are highly toxic.
01:37Together, they create a harmful stew called leachate,
01:41which can move into groundwater, soil, and streams,
01:44poisoning ecosystems and harming wildlife.
01:48It can take Bottle One an agonizing 1,000 years to decompose.
01:54Bottle Two's journey is stranger, but unfortunately no happier.
01:58He floats on a trickle that reaches a stream,
02:01a stream that flows into a river, and a river that reaches the ocean.
02:06After months lost at sea, he's slowly drawn into a massive vortex,
02:11where trash accumulates, a place known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
02:17Here, the ocean's currents have trapped millions of pieces of plastic debris.
02:22This is one of five plastic-filled gyres in the world's seas,
02:27places where the pollutants turn the water into a cloudy plastic soup.
02:32Some animals, like seabirds, get entangled in the mess.
02:35They and others mistake the brightly colored plastic bits for food.
02:41Plastic makes them feel full when they're not, so they starve to death,
02:46and pass the toxins from the plastic up the food chain.
02:50For example, it's eaten by lanternfish, the lanternfish are eaten by squid,
02:54the squid are eaten by tuna, and the tuna are eaten by us.
02:59And most plastics don't biodegrade,
03:02which means they're destined to break down into smaller and smaller pieces
03:06called microplastics, which might rotate in the sea eternally.
03:12But Bottle Three is spared the cruel purgatories of his brothers.
03:17A truck brings him to a plant where he and his companions are squeezed flat
03:21and compressed into a block.
03:24Okay, this sounds pretty bad, too.
03:26But hang in there.
03:27It gets better.
03:29The blocks are shredded into tiny pieces,
03:31which are washed and melted,
03:33so they become the raw materials that can be used again.
03:37As if by magic, Bottle Three is now ready to be reborn as something completely new.
03:44For this bit of plastic with such humble origins,
03:47suddenly, the sky is the limit.