(^30) • VOCABLE Du 18 au 31 octobre 2018 facile A2-B1 / moyen B2-C1 / diicile C1-C2
Découverte I Environnement I PAY S - B A S I C2
F
ew things exercise green sensibilities
more these days than marine plastic
litter. The detritus looks unsightly when it
washes up on beaches, and cruel when it
chokes photogenic sea creatures. Scientists
estimate that perhaps 8m tonnes of plastic
waste enters the ocean each year, discharged
by rivers or shed from ships. Plenty stays
close to shore. Some, though, is carried by
currents to mid-ocean gyres. - The biggest of these is located halfway
between California and Hawaii—and so lit-
THE ECONOMIST
tered with flotsam that it has been nick-
named the Great Paciic Garbage Patch. A
study published last March in Scientific
Reports by Laurent LeBreton of the Ocean
Cleanup, a Dutch charity, and colleagues,
found that it contains between 45,000 and
129,000 tonnes of plastic debris spread over
an area roughly the size of Alaska. A CLEVER DEVICE
- The idea of sweeping it all up might sound
fanciful. To Boyan Slat it seemed merely
ambitious. What if, he wondered in 2012
(then aged 18), you could build a massive
bow-shaped loating barrier, anchor it to the
seabed and let currents shufle the litter into
the scoop? Despite his youthful age and
madcap scheme, Mr Slat set up the Ocean
Cleanup to put it into practice. Six years,
€20m ($23m) and several prototypes later,
the device set sail from San Francisco on
September 8th, escorted by a Coast Guard
vessel, a shipload of camera crews and a
lotilla of curious boaters. - System 001, as the contraption has been chris-
tened, is a hollow cylinder 600 metres long and
1.2 metres in diameter, itself made of plastic
(polyethylene). It was moulded together into a
seamless whole from 12-metre segments at a
shipyard across the San Francisco Bay in Oakland.
A three-metre-deep skirt (made of sturdy polyes-
ter) dangles beneath the boom to prevent litter
from escaping under it; buoyant plastic tends to
loat within a metre of the water’s surface. - The device is even simpler than Mr
Slat’s original idea, having dispensed - to exercise here, to alarm / litter rubbish, trash /
unsightly ugly / to wash up to arrive on the shore by the
movement of the waves / to choke to sufocate, to
obstruct respiration / waste (inv.) unwanted matter,
trash / to discharge to emit / to shed, shed, shed here,
to throw away / shore beach, coast / gyre vortex. - to be located to be situated / halfway midway
between two points /
lotsam debris loating on the surface of the water / to
nickname to give an informal/humorous name to sth/sb /
garbage rubbish, trash / patch small area of land /
charity non-proit organisation which helps a cause / to
spread, spread, spread over to extend over / roughly
approximately.- device here, system / to sweep, swept, swept up to
collect and clear away / fanciful unreal / merely simply /
bow-shaped curved (bow curved weapon used to shoot
arrows) / to anchor to ix irmly in one place / seabed
bottom of the ocean / to shule here, to push / scoop
here, large spoon, curved utensil / youthful young /
madcap crazy / scheme project / to set, set, set up to
create /
to set, set, set sail to start travelling on the ocean / vessel
ship, boat / shipload as many passengers as a ship can
carry, here, many / boater person who owns a boat.- contraption invention / to christen to baptise, to call
/ hollow empty / to mould to structure / seamless
whole one entire piece / shipyard place where ships are
built and repaired / skirt piece of clothing worn by women
which hangs from the waist, here, protective piece of fabric
/ sturdy robust, solid / to dangle to hang, to be
suspended / boom loating barrier used to catch debris /
buoyant loating on the surface. - to dispense with to get rid of, to do without /
"A skirt dangles
beneath the boom to
prevent litter from
escaping" (§ 4)Attention aux faux-amis!
to prevent = empêcher
prévenir = to warn, to inform, to tellSUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUETRAWLING FOR
PLASTIC IN THE PACIFIC
Plastic pollution in the Pacific
(to trawl to catch fish with a large net)
On 9 September, System 001, the lotation device put together by the Dutch start-
up, Ocean Cleanup, began its journey in a series of tests of the coast of California. It
marks the beginning of a hugely ambitious mission, to clean up the Great Paciic
Garbage Patch, an immense expanse of loating, mainly plastic, refuse on the
surface of the Paciic Ocean, located between Hawaii and Japan. How does this
ingenious system work?System 001, escorted by a Coast
Guard vessel, is being installed at
a Paciic trial test site on
September 15th. (The Ocean Cleanup)Los AngelesHawaiiThe Great Paciic
Garbage Patch