塑料为人类带来了很多便利，我们现在早已习惯了用塑料，穿塑料，玩塑料，吃……塑料。没错，我们几乎每天都在吃塑料。

 

Microplastics are "one of the greatest manmade disasters of our time", according to the Natural History Museum. That's bad news, given they are also everywhere; in tap water, the food you buy, the clothes you wear and the air you breathe.

伦敦自然历史博物馆认为，微塑料是“这个时代最大的人造灾难之一”。这是个坏消息，因为微塑料无处不在；它存在于在自来水里，你买的食物，你穿的衣服，你呼吸的空气中。

 

The largest microplastics can be seen by the naked eye and are anything under half a centimetre in size. But many of them are small enough to act like specks¹ of dust which we can inadvertently breathe in or eat in food. The smallest particles are called nanoplastics and they are small enough to get their way deep into the human body.

最大的微塑料肉眼可见，大小不足0.5厘米。但许多微塑料都很小，小到像灰尘一样可以在不经意间被我们吸入或和食物一起吃下去。最小的塑料颗粒被称为纳米塑料，它们小到可以深入人体。

 

New findings from the University of Portsmouth show that there is so much synthetic² material in our homes that we might be breathing in up to 7,000 microplastic particles a day. Using specialist equipment, they measured a typical family home and found the highest concentration of it was in the bedroom of the eight-year-old daughter, whose room was decorated with plastic-based bedding, carpet and soft toys.

英国朴茨茅斯大学的新发现表明，我们的家中有太多合成材料，我们每天可能会吸入多达7000个微塑粒子。研究人员使用专业设备测量了一个典型家庭住宅，发现其中微塑料最集中的地方是8岁女儿的卧室，她的房间摆放着塑料床垫、地毯和毛绒玩具。

 

Although research is in its infancy³, the risks of these plastics could be serious – some studies have linked high exposure to cancer risk and disrupting our hormones⁴. In animal studies, the particles have been shown to affect metabolism⁵, gut⁶ bacteria and the immune system, among other things.

尽管研究还处于起步阶段，但微塑料的危害可能很大——一些研究表明，微塑料与高患癌风险和扰乱人体激素有关。在动物研究中，微塑料已被证明会影响新陈代谢、肠道细菌和免疫系统等。

 

It is not yet known what a healthy level of microplastics might look like, but Dr Sabine Donnai, CEO of the Viavi clinic, is adamant⁷ that many people in the West are over the threshold. In tests at her clinic, patients often come back with dangerously high levels of plastic in their bodies, she says. 

目前，我们还不知道人体内微塑料的健康水平是多少，但Viavi诊所首席执行官萨宾·多奈博士坚信，许多西方人已经超过了安全线。多奈表示，在她的诊所进行的测试中，患者体内的塑料含量往往处于较高的危险值。

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