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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.
洗衣机废弃的水向海洋中带进了很多小的塑料粒子，它们卷住了海洋生物。戴维.别洛报道。
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.
破碎的塑料垃圾丢弃在七大洋中。但不是这些大的塑料块造成了最大的污染问题。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]
这些小塑料丢弃在像沙粒的海岸线上，在开放得海洋上漂浮甚至沉在海洋底部。在海岸线上的塑料取样表明它们多是来源于污水。这些在环境科学与技术杂志上已有过分析。
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.
但是塑料微粒在源头上是怎样进入污水中的呢？塑料微粒的多数组成部分都是在衣服中使用的，聚酯和丙烯酸。这些部分的相似物在附近污水处理的植株的分泌物中发现。那就意味着多数的塑料微粒来源于洗衣机。
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.
羊毛是最坏的倒出物。但是以塑料为基础的衣服每洗涤一次能失去1900纤维。加上更好的纤维可能是解决方法，洗衣机或者是污水处理植物在处理所有的洗涤水。
Otherwise, all that plastic ends up stored in cells of sea life. And that's not very clean.
另外，所有的塑料会在海洋生物细胞中储藏，那并不是干净的。
—David Biello 戴维•别洛
