Microplastic dust flies around the world

广西鹿寨县鹿寨中学 梁宇耀

随着塑料制品的大量使用，塑料垃圾也越来越多，它们常常被称为白色污染。此外，还有很多塑料微粒和尘土混在一起，被风吹来吹去，已经扩散到了全球。

题材 环境 体裁 报道文章词数351 难度 ★★★ 建议用时6′

海词积累

1.pristine adj.处于原始状态的；未开发的

2.culprit n.引起问题的事物；肇事者

3.pound v.反复击打；捣碎

4.particle n.微粒；颗粒

5.inhale v.吸入

6.pandemic n.大流行病

7.humble adj.谦逊的；虚心的

According to the latest research, there's nowhere left to run from the suffering resulting from microplastic pollution.A small pilot study recently took microplastic samples from the French Pyrenees mountains， one of Europe's most pristine hideaways,and found as many microplastics in the soil as you might expect from a large city like Paris.

“We'd kind of expected it in a city getting blown around,”said Steve Allen from the University of Strathclyde in the UK,one member of the team.“The number is shocking.”

The culprit? The wind. Researchers now fear that our planet's winds can pick up microplastics from anywhere and transport them around the world,sometimes in alarming quantities.

The forces of nature don't distinguish between materials like stones and rocks, and plastics.Winds and waves pound plastics and break them down just the same,leaving them down into dust that can then get swept up by the breeze and into the atmosphere.It's an ongoing environmental concern as more and more microplastics find their way into our food and air.

Steve Allen and his team set up collectors 1,370 meters up in the mountains for five months to trap plastic particles as they fell to the Earth.There are only a few small villages within 100 kilometers of the test site. “We expected to find some,”he said. “We didn't expect to find quite as much as we did.”

The team found that an average of 365 plastic particles fell on their one-square-meter collector daily.This included fibers from clothing, bits from plastic bags, plastic film and packaging material,among other plastic sources.Many of these materials were small enough to be inhaled without even realizing it.They're in the air,and they're everywhere.

“We suggest that microplastics can reach and affect remote inhabited areas through atmospheric transport,”the authors conclude in their article,published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The fact that microplastics can be found in large concentrations even in remote places is an indication that this has become a global pollution pandemic.It's a humbling reminder that human pollution has no boundaries or borders.

——From Mother Nature Network

Reading Check

Who on earth do you think is to blame for microplastic pollution?

Language Study

Difficult sentence

The fact that microplastics can be found in large concentrations even in remote places is an indication that this has become a global pollution pandemic.即使是在偏远地区，也可以发现大量的塑料微粒，这表明这已成为一种全球性的污染流行病。

【点石成金】本句中第一个that和第二个that引导的均为同位语从句，分别用来解释说明名词fact和indication的具体内容。