8 trillion microbeads pollute U.S. aquatic habitats daily 每天有8兆顆微珠污染美國水生棲地
精英翻譯社轉自http://iservice.ltn.com.tw/Service/english/english.php?engno=917760&day=2015-09-23
◎魏國金
Not to alarm you, but your daily morning regimen might be harming the planet’s oceans.
不是要嚇你，但是你每天早上的習慣或許正在傷害地球的海洋。
What’s the culprit? Microbeads. They are tiny, plastic beads that many companies have added to body scrubs, cosmetics, soaps -- essentially hundreds of products, to create an exfoliating sensation for users.
罪魁禍首是什麼？微珠。許多企業將塑膠微珠加入身體磨砂膏、化妝品、香皂——實際上有數百種產品，為使用者營造去角質的感覺。
There’s more than eight trillion microbeads entering aquatic habitats every day in the United States alone, according to a new study published in Environmental Science & Technology. It’s enough microbeads to cover 300 tennis courts daily.
根據刊載於期刊「環境科學與技術」的新研究，光是美國，每天就有超過8兆顆微珠進入水生棲地。該微珠量足以每天覆蓋300座網球場。
A microbead is any plastic that is smaller than 5 mm, about three times the size of a pinhead. They are designed to wash down drains, but have added to the increased microplastic debris littering the Earth’s oceans and many freshwater lakes, the study states. Due to their size, plastic microbeads are difficult to clean up on a large scale.
微珠是任何小於5公釐、約針頭3倍大的塑膠製品。該研究指出，它們應被沖入排水設施，卻使廢棄於海洋與許多淡水湖的微小塑膠碎屑有增無減，而因其尺寸，塑膠微珠難以大規模清除。
"Contaminants like these microbeads are not something our waste-water treatment plants were built to handle, and the overall amount of contamination is huge," Stephanie Green of Oregon State University and co-author of the study said.
「這些微珠污染物並非是我們的污水處理廠可以應付的物質，而該污染物總量十分龐大，」該研究共同撰文者、奧勒岡州立大學的葛林說。
Some species of marine life mistake the small plastic particles for food, and scientists are currently examining how microplastics are affecting marine life once ingested and whether those chemicals can be transferred to humans if people consume these marine species later on.
部分海洋生物誤食該塑膠微粒，目前科學家正檢視該塑膠微珠一旦被攝食後，將如何衝擊海洋生物，以及之後人們食用這些海洋生物後，那些化學物質是否將轉移到人體。
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