英國塑料袋在收費政策下使用量已減少60億隻
Shoppers in England will take home six billion fewer plastic bags this year thanks to the introduction of the 5p charge.
在推出徵收5便士的政策之後，英國消費者今年使用的塑料袋大約減少了60億隻。The first official Government figures show the charge has cut use of the environmentally-damaging bags by around 85 per cent.
據英國政府第一次的統計數據顯示，收費使得危害環境的塑料袋用量減少了大約85%。More than seven billion single-use plastic bags were handed out by the main retailers in 2014.
在2014年，英國的零售商們發行了70多億隻一次性塑料袋。
But in the six months that followed the introduction of the charge in England in October, that figure dropped to just half a billion.
不過，在推出一次性塑料袋徵收5便士政策後的前六個月，這一數字一下子減少了大約5億隻。That means six billion fewer bags will be taken home by shoppers over the course of the first year.
如果保持第一年的這一趨勢，那就意味着今年塑料袋的使用量將減少60億隻。Environment Ministers said this was the equivalent to the weight of roughly 300 blue whales, 300,000 sea turtles or three million pelicans.
環境部長表示，這相當於大約300頭藍鯨的重量，也相當於30萬隻海龜或者300萬隻鵜鶘的重量。The 5p charge has also resulted in donations of more than 29 million pound from retailers towards good causes, including charities and community groups.
收取5便士這一政策也導致零售商將收取的超過2900萬英鎊用於包括慈善機構和社會團體的公益事業。It shows small actions can make the biggest difference, but we must not be complacent as there is always more we can all do to reduce waste and recycle what we use.
這顯示出了小舉措卻能帶來巨大的改變，不過我們也不可驕傲自滿，因爲在減少浪費和回收利用方面，我們能做的還遠遠不止這些。
