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Washing machine waste water carries tiny pieces of plastic to the oceans, where they wind up in sea life. David Biello reports.
洗衣機廢棄的水向海洋中帶進了很多小的塑料粒子，它們卷住了海洋生物。戴維.別洛報道。
Swirls of trashed plastic litter the seven seas. But it's not the enormous plastic patches that pose the biggest pollution problem. Instead it's bits of plastic less than one millimeter in size.
破碎的塑料垃圾丟棄在七大洋中。但不是這些大的塑料塊造成了最大的污染問題。而是小于一毫米的小塑料。
Such microplastic litters shorelines like grains of sand, floats in the open ocean and even sinks down to the deep sea. And sampling the microplastic on shorelines reveals that most of it comes from sewage. That's according to an analysis in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. [Mark Anthony Browne et al, Accumulation of Microplastic on Shorelines Woldwide: Sources and Sinks]
這些小塑料丟棄在像沙粒的海岸線上，在開放得海洋上漂浮甚至沉在海洋底部。在海岸線上的塑料取樣表明它們多是來源于污水。這些在環境科學與技術雜志上已有過分析。
But how did the microplastic get in the sewage in the first place? Most of the particles were plastics commonly used in clothes — polyester and acrylic. Similar levels of such particles were found in the discharge from nearby sewage treatment plants. And that means most of the microplastics were coming from our washing machines.
但是塑料微粒在源頭上是怎樣進入污水中的呢？塑料微粒的多數組成部分都是在衣服中使用的，聚酯和丙烯酸。這些部分的相似物在附近污水處理的植株的分泌物中發現。那就意味著多數的塑料微粒來源于洗衣機。
Fleece is the worst shedder. But various plastic-based garments can lose more than 1,900 fibers per wash. The solution may be to add better filters, either to washing machines or to the sewage treatment plants that deal with all the wash water.
羊毛是最壞的倒出物。但是以塑料為基礎的衣服每洗滌一次能失去1900纖維。加上更好的纖維可能是解決方法，洗衣機或者是污水處理植物在處理所有的洗滌水。
Otherwise, all that plastic ends up stored in cells of sea life. And that's not very clean.
另外，所有的塑料會在海洋生物細胞中儲藏，那并不是干凈的。
—David Biello 戴維•別洛
