新闻周刊:岛屿正被塑料垃圾淹没(3)（在线收听）

In 2017, Lavers in a separate study showed that the beaches of Henderson Island in the South Pacific had the world's highest density of plastic garbage, at an estimated 38 million pieces.

2017年，另一项研究显示，南太平洋亨德森岛的海滩上塑料垃圾的密度是世界最高的，估计有3800万件。

Lavers said: "Unlike Henderson Island, where most identifiable debris was fishing-related, the plastic on Cocos (Keeling) was largely single-use consumer items such as bottle caps and straws, as well as a large number of shoes and thongs."

拉弗斯说:“与亨德森岛不同的是，基林岛上的塑料垃圾大多是一次性消费品，比如瓶盖和吸管，以及大量的鞋子和丁字裤。亨德森岛的垃圾大多与捕鱼有关。”

Annett Finger, a researcher with Victoria University in Australia who co-authored the study, expressed concern that, despite such findings, the amount of plastic being produced worldwide was climbing. "Plastic pollution is a well-documented threat to wildlife and its potential impact on humans is a growing area of medical research," she said.

澳大利亚维多利亚大学的研究人员Annett Finger是这项研究的合著者，他担心尽管有这些发现，但全球塑料产量仍正在攀升。她说:“塑料污染是对野生动物的一种有根有据的威胁，它对人类的潜在影响正在成为医学研究的一个日益增长的领域。”

"The scale of the problem means cleaning up our oceans is currently not possible, and cleaning beaches once they are polluted with plastic is time consuming, costly, and needs to be regularly repeated as thousands of new pieces of plastic wash up each day.

“这个问题的规模意味着，目前清理海洋是不可能的，而一旦海滩被塑料污染，清理海滩是费时、昂贵的，需要定期重复，因为每天都有成千上万的新塑料被冲上来。”

"The only viable solution is to reduce plastic production and consumption while improving waste management to stop this material entering our oceans in the first place."

“唯一可行的解决方案是减少塑料的生产和消费，同时改善废物管理，从一开始就阻止这种材料进入我们的海洋。”

The team are among the latest scientists to warn of the threat posed to the environment by plastic pollution. Last month, the authors of separate research published in the journal Nature Geoscience studied pollution in a remote area in the mountains of France and concluded tiny pieces of plastic can travel up to 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, through the air.

该团队是最新警告塑料污染对环境构成威胁的科学家之一。上个月，发表在《自然地球科学》杂志上的另一项研究的作者研究了法国山区一个偏远地区的污染情况，得出的结论是，微小的塑料碎片可以在空气中传播100公里(合62英里)。