VOA常速英语2019--海藻可能有助于生产可降解生物塑料（在线收听）

Seaweed Could Help Produce Biodegradable Plastic

Shoppers use 500 billion plastic bags worldwide every year.

每年，全球购物者使用五千亿个塑料袋。 

Plastic water bottles, straws and food utensils are washed ashore on the world’s beaches.

塑料水瓶、吸管和食物用具被冲往世界各地的海滩。 

And residues of plastic are found in dead animal, human faces and even Arctic ice.

在死亡的动物、人类甚至北极冰地区可以找到塑料残留物。 

Most plastics take hundreds of years to break down.

大多数塑料要花费数百年才能被降解。 

Scientists at Tel Aviv University say they have created a biodegradable plastic from marine microorganisms.

特拉维夫大学的科学家表示，他们已经用海洋微生物制造了一种可生物降解的塑料。 

Our solution for the growing plastic consumption is to produce polymers, which are use in plastics inside the single-cell marine organisms.

针对日益增长的塑料消耗，我们的解决方案是生产聚合物，是用于塑料、来自单细胞海洋生物体内的聚合物。

So since the organisms produced it with polymers are biodegradable, which means that they will fade or they will not take a lot of time in the sea and they will be decomposed very fast.

因此，用微生物生产的有机物是可生物降解的，这意味着它们会消逝，不会在海中待很久并且它们能被快速分解。

A polymer is a substance that has a molecular structure composed of many similarity on its views together.

聚合物是具有分子结构的物质，其分子结构在视图上有很多类似物组合在一起。 

The plastic industry makes artificial polymers but they can be produced by natural organisms.

塑料工业生产人造聚合物，但它们也可以由天然有机物生产。 

But to make these polymers, micro organisms need food.

但要制造这些聚合物，微生物需要食物。 

And the food in our case comes from seaweeds.

而我们这指的食物来自于海藻。 

Seaweeds are marine organisms, which we can grow in the sea without any use of arable land and drinking water.

海藻是海洋生物，我们可以在海中培植，无需使用耕地和饮用水。 

And that’s why our process is very different from all others proposed today.

这就是为什么我们的方案与今天提出的所有其他方案截然不同的原因。 

Israeli scientists believe marine manufactured by plastic could be cheap and easy to Produce.

以色列科学家认为，塑料海洋会很便宜且易于生产。 

The biological organisms are collected or removed from water and then they are dried, crushed and the polymer is extracted out of these materials.

从水中收集或分离生物有机体，然后将它们放置干燥、碾压后从中提取聚合物。 

And then the polymer could be further processed and purified to reach specifications demanded by the industry.

聚合物可以进一步加工和提纯，以达到工业要求的规格。 

Scientists say they’re still looking for the best organisms to produce polymers for biodegradable polyester, food packaging, containers and other items that would reduce the plastic dependency.

科学家表示，他们仍在寻找产生可降解聚合物的最佳微生物，用以食品包装袋、塑料容器和其他塑料依赖性物品。

Israeli environmentalist Maia Jacobs is grateful to China.

以色列环境保护者Maia Jacobs 很感激中国。 

The best thing that happened to the world is the China clarity that it won’t receive any more international garbage.

世上最好的事情就是中国明确表示它不会再接收任何国际垃圾。 

And therefore suddenly everybody is piling up with their own garbage and they understand that they need to find the solution.

因此，突然间每个人的周围都堆满了自己的垃圾，明白自己需要找到解决方案。 

And suddenly we find that there’s a lot of new ideas.

突然，我们发现还有很多新的解决方法。 

According to some estimates if the present trend of single use plastic continues, oceans could contain more plastics in fish by 2050.

据估计，如果目前单一用途的塑料量趋势持续增长，到2050年，海洋鱼类体内可能含有更多的塑料。