化妝品也威脅着海洋生物的生存

Your morning routine may go as follows: have breakfast, brush teeth, shower, then head out to start your day.

早上起來，你可能會先吃個早飯，然後再刷牙、洗澡、出門開始新的一天。

But there’s a hidden step in there you may not be aware of – polluting the ocean and endangering sea life while *contaminating the food chain.

但是，你可能並沒有意識到，你清晨的一個小習慣，正在污染着海洋，威脅着海洋生物的生存，甚至破壞着整個食物鏈。

*Microbeads are *miniscule pieces of plastic omnipresent in our everyday cosmetics that you may have never paid much attention to up until now.

微珠是一些非常小的塑料碎片，它在我們每天都用的化妝品中無處不在。或許直到現在，你都沒有注意到它的存在。

From face *scrubs, *exfoliating shower gels and even toothpaste, there’s no escaping them.

從臉部磨砂膏、去角質沐浴露、甚至是牙膏，到處都有它們的身影。

But while they may help keep our skin and teeth looking good, many species of sea life are mistaking the tiny colorful balls for food, ending up with them in their *digestive systems.

儘管它們讓我們的皮膚和牙齒看起來很棒，但許多海洋生物卻將這些微小的彩色顆粒誤以爲是食物並將其吞下，進入它們的消化系統。

We find pieces of plastic in every sample of seawater we study from round the world, professor Tamara Galloway of Exeter University told the BBC.

我們在世界各地的海水樣本中都找到了這些塑料碎片，英國埃克塞特大學的塔瑪拉•加洛威教授向BBC表示。

What makes this even more worrying is that plastic is known to be excellent at absorbing toxic pollutants in water – such as motor oil or *pesticides – and it’s thought that these toxins could be making their way up the food chain and eventually onto our plates.

更加令人擔憂的是，我們都知道，塑料十分易於吸收水中的有毒污染物——如機油和殺蟲劑等——而有人認爲這些毒素可以因此進入食物鏈，最終出現在我們的餐桌上。

An average plate of oysters could contain up to 50 plastic particles.

平均一盤牡蠣可能就含有50個塑料顆粒。

We don’t have any evidence yet for the harm this might cause but most people would probably prefer not to be eating microbeads with their food, Galloway explains.

儘管目前爲止沒有證據表明這些顆粒會對人體有害，但大多數人都不會選擇食用含有微珠的食物，加洛威解釋道。

A number of countries have announced they will ban microbeads, including the UK and the US, but campaigners say that more still needs to be done to completely rid Earth of the tiny grains of plastic for good.

包括英國和美國在內的一些國家已經宣佈將禁用微珠。但倡議者們認爲，要想讓這些塑料顆粒在地球上完全消失，還有許多工作要做。

There’s a load of products containing microbeads – like washing detergents and other household products – which might not be banned.

市面上有大量包含微珠的產品——如清潔劑和其他的家用產品——並不會被禁用。

That makes no sense to us, Fiona Nicholls of Greenpeace UK writes on its website.

這對我們而言便毫無意義，來自英國非政府組織綠色和平的菲奧娜•尼科爾斯在網站上寫道。

After all, what does a hungry fish care if the microplastic clogging its gut has come from a face scrub or a washing powder?

畢竟，又有哪條飢腸轆轆的魚會在意，這些堵塞它們腸道的微塑料，是來自於面部磨砂膏，還是洗衣粉呢？

There are still safe ways to dispose of microbead-containing products, for people who decide they don’t want to use them any more.

對於決心不再使用含微珠產品的人們來說，也有一些安全的處理方法。

Natural substitutes

純天然的替代品

Several websites recommend squeezing the offending product into the trash, rather than down the sink, before cleaning out the container with disposable tissue and placing it in the recycling bin.

一些網站建議，在使用一次性紙巾徹底清理這些產品容器，並將它們放入回收垃圾桶前，不如將裏面這些惹人厭的內容物都擠入垃圾桶中，而不是直接倒入水槽裏。

And for those who still want to enjoy the benefits of exfoliating, they still can.

當然，還有別的方法能夠幫助人們去除身上多餘角質。

There are several natural substitutes that are said to work in the exact same way as their plastic counterparts, except these will *biodegrade when flushed down the drain.

好幾種天然替代品都具有和塑料微珠相同的功效，在衝入下水道後，這些物質還都能被降解。

There are many ingredients that can be used as an alternative. There’s *jojoba beads, *cocoa, raspberry seeds, rice flour, oats – to name but a few, says Sonia White of British cosmetics firm Love Lula.

許多原料都能用作替代品，如荷荷巴油珠、可可粉、樹莓籽、米粉、燕麥等等，來自英國化妝品公司Love Lula的索尼亞•懷特介紹道。

There is absolutely no cosmetic ingredient that is worth using if it has a negative effect on the environment and animals.

如果一種化妝品原料會對環境和動物產生不利影響，那麼它便沒有使用價值。