degrade [dɪ'greɪd] 

v. 降低

图片来源：图虫创意

If your favourite brand of tea is using plastic teabags, you are probably getting a gutful of microplastics.
如果你最喜欢的茶饮品牌在使用塑料茶包，那么你可能会喝一肚子微塑料。

A new study has found that a single plastic teabag steeped at a brewing temperature of 95 degrees Celsius releases around 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics into a single cup. Let that sink in for a moment.
一项新研究发现，在95摄氏度的沏茶温度下，用一袋塑料茶包泡一杯茶会释放出116亿个塑料微粒和31亿个纳米塑料微粒。让我们先来思考一下。

Currently, we're estimated to consume over 74,000 particles of microplastics a year. According to this research, there's nearly 200,000 times that amount in a single cup of plastic teabag tea.
目前，我们估计人们每年要喝掉74000个塑料微粒。根据这项研究，用一袋塑料茶包泡茶，其微塑料含量几乎是它的20万倍。

Microplastics are everywhere. So much of our food is wrapped in plastic, for a start, and often ends up in the food itself. 
微塑料无处不在。首先，我们的很多食物用的都是塑料包装，而且微塑料往往最终都会进入食物内。

In addition, it leaches out into the environment. We're making (painfully slow) headway eliminating useless plastic microbeads from body washes, and phasing out plastic straws and bags, but the damage has been done.
此外，它还渗入到了环境中。从沐浴露中淘汰掉无用的塑料柔珠，逐步淘汰塑料吸管和塑料袋，我们正（非常缓慢地）取得进展，但损害已经造成。

Plastic ends up in things like sea salt, canned fish, and honey, and chicken.
塑料最终进入到海盐、鱼罐头、蜂蜜和鸡肉中。

For many years, teabags have been made mostly out of paper, but recently some companies have been using plastic meshes instead.
多年来，茶包主要是用纸做成的，但最近一些公司在使用塑料网袋。

This isn't just a problem for the environment. According to researchers at McGill University in Canada, temperatures greater than 40 degrees Celsius can degrade plastics immensely. Even food-grade plastics.
这不仅仅是环境问题。加拿大麦吉尔大学研究员表示，40摄氏度以上的温度极大地促进了塑料的降解，甚至是食品级塑料。

If you want to avoid it, your best bet is to choose paper teabags (do your homework, though, some paper ones are reinforced with plastic), or loose-leaf tea.
如果你想避免这一问题，最好的办法是选择纸制茶包（不过，你要好好研究一下，因为有些纸制茶包是用塑料加固的），或者散装茶叶。

 

今日词汇

degrade [dɪ'greɪd] 

v. 降低

 

This substance degrades rapidly in the soil.
这种物质在土壤里会迅速降解。

 

to meet human needs indefinitely without degrading the environment
无限满足人类需求又不使环境恶化（...这事儿似乎无解）