Washing Your Jeans Too Much MightPose Risks to the Environment洗太多次牛仔褲可能會給環境帶來風險

Sharon Oosthoek

張寧編譯

Look at what you' re wearing. There's a good chance it includes blue jeans or other itemsmade from denim l. At anv moment. about half the world's population is wearing this fabric 2.Tinv bits of denim have been adding up to a surprising amount of pollution in rivers. lakesand oceans. new research shows.

看看你正穿著什么。很有可能包括藍色牛仔褲或其他由牛仔布制成的衣物。在任何時候，世界上大約一半的人口都穿著這種面料。一項新的研究顯示，在河流、湖泊和海洋中，微小的牛仔布已經造成了驚人的污染。

Savs Sam Athey， one of the study's authors. “We don't know yet the influences onWildlife and the environment."But she is worried. “Even though denim is made of a naturalmaterial-cotton.it conlains chemicals.”she points out.

該研究的作者之一薩姆·艾希說：“我們還不知道這對野生動物和環境的影響是什么。”但她很擔心。她指出：“即使牛仔布是由天然材料—一棉花制成的，它也含有化學物質。

Everv time we wash clothes. these microfibers 3 come loose and flow out of washingmachines. doWn the drain and into the world's rivers. lakes and oceans. Microfibers make upa lot of the smallest bits of pollution.

每次我們洗衣服的時候，這些微纖維就會松動，并從洗衣機中流出，通過排水溝流入世界的河流、湖泊和海洋中。微纖維構成了許多最微小的污染物。

The scientists found microfibers from other fabrics. too. But the team focused on denimbecause so many peopleWear jeans.

這些科學家們也從其他織物中發現了微纖維。但該團隊專注于牛仔布，因為有相當多的人穿牛仔褲。

Today's jeans are colored with synthetic indig0 4 dye 5. （Synthetic means it is made bypeople.） Some chemicals in the dve are toxic6. Athey and her team worry about how far andwide these long-lived chemicals are spreading.“These fibers occurred everywhere，”she says.

今天的牛仔褲是用合成的靛藍染料染色的。（合成是指它是人造的。）該染料中的一些化學物質是有毒的。艾希和她的團隊擔心這些長期存在的化學物質擴散的范圍。“這些纖維到處都是。”她說。

People have been paying attention to microplastics. But chemically treated naturalmicrofibers. such as denim， might be just as worrying， says Athey.

人們一直在關注微塑料。但是艾希說化學處理的天然微纖維，如牛仔布，可能也同樣令人擔憂。

Smaller organisms， such as planktod 7， also could eat microfibers. This would stopthem from being able to eat the food they need to survive 8.

較小的生物，如浮游生物，也會吃到微纖維。這將阻礙它們吃到生存所需的食物。

Athey and her team washed jeans to see how manv microfibers each pair shed 9 perwash. The answer ？ About 50.000.

艾希和她的團隊洗滌牛仔褲，觀察每條牛仔褲每洗滌一次會產生多少微纖維。答案是什么呢？大約有5萬個。

Not all of those fibers make their way into the environment. Wastewater treatmenlplants capture anywhere from 83 to 99 percent of them. But it still adds up to lots ofmicrofibers entering environments.

并不是所有的纖維都能進入環境中。廢水處理廠會攔截83%到99%的微纖維。但這仍然增加了許多進入環境的微纖維數量。

Everyone wears jeans so it could be our largest input 10 of microfibers into theenvironment. An easy way to limit that is bv washing our jeans less often.

每個人都穿牛仔褲，這樣它就可能會成為進入環境的微纖維的最大來源。一個簡單的限制方法就是少洗牛仔褲。

“We need to buv fewer clothes and only wash them when they truly need it，" Atheysays.

“我們要少買衣服，只在真正需要的時候才洗衣服。”艾希說。

（英語原文選自：sciencenewsforstudents.org）

[Notes]

1.denim[?den?m] n.斜紋粗棉布;牛仔布

2.fabric [?f?br?k] n.織物;布

3.microfiber[ma?k'r??f?b?r]n.超細纖維;微纖維

4.indigo['?nd?ɡ??]n.靛藍，靛藍染料

5.dye [da?] n.染料

6.toxic[?t?ks?k] adj.有毒的

7.plankton [?pl??kt?n] n.浮游生物

8.survive[s??va?v] v.存活

9.shed [?ed] y.流出;脫落

！

10.input [??n?p?t]n.輸入