Microplastics have become a common source of pollution across the Earth-they have settled in the deep sea and on the Himalayas, stuck inside volcanic rocks, filled the stomachs of seabirds and even fallen in fresh Antarctic snow. They are even appearing inside humans.
微塑料已成为地球上常见的污染源——它们分布在深海和喜马拉雅山，散落在火山岩中，海鸟的胃里，甚至南极的新鲜雪中，甚至出现在人体内。
Now, new research suggests that a simple, cheap measure may significantly reduce the level of microplastics in water from your tap: boiling and filtering it. In a study published Wednesday in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, researchers from China found that boiling tap water for just five minutes-then filtering it after it cools-could remove at least 80 percent of its microplastics.
现在，新的研究表明，一种简单、廉价的措施可能会显著降低自来水中的微塑料含量：煮沸并过滤。在周三发表在《环境科学与技术快报》上的一项研究中，来自中国的研究人员发现，将自来水煮沸五分钟，然后冷却后过滤，可以去除至少80%的微塑料。
Crucially, this process relies on the water containing enough calcium carbonate to trap the plastics. In the study, boiling hard water containing 300 milligrams of calcium carbonate led to an almost 90 percent drop in plastics. But in samples with less than 60 milligrams of calcium carbonate, boiling reduced the level of plastics by just 25 percent. Additionally, the research didn't include all types of plastics. The team focused only on three common types-polystyrene, polyethylene and polypropylene-and they didn't study other chemicals previously found in water such as vinyl chloride.
至关重要的是，这一过程依赖于含有水中有足够的碳酸钙来捕获塑料。在这项研究中，煮沸含有300毫克碳酸钙的硬水导致塑料含量下降了近90%。但在碳酸钙含量低于60毫克的样品中，煮沸仅使塑料含量降低了25%。此外，这项研究并没有包括所有类型的塑料。该团队只关注三种常见类型的聚苯乙烯、聚乙烯和聚丙烯，他们没有研究以前在水中发现的其他化学物质，如氯乙烯。
Still, the findings show a potential path forward for reducing microplastic exposure-a task that's becoming increasingly difficult. Even bottled water, scientists found earlier this year, contains 10 to 1,000 times more microplastics than originally thought.
尽管如此，这些发现给出了减少微塑料暴露的潜在途径——这项任务变得越来越困难。科学家今年早些时候发现，即使是瓶装水，其微塑料含量也比最初想象的多10到1000倍。
Scientists are still trying to determine how harmful microplastics are-but what they do know has raised concerns. The new study suggests boiling tap water could be a tool to limit intake. “The way they demonstrated how microplastics were trapped through the boiling process was nice," Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay, an environmental engineer at the University of Glasgow in Scotland who was not involved in the research, tells New Scientist. “We should be looking into upgrading drinking water treatment plants so they remove microplastics.”
科学家们仍在试图确定微塑料的危害程度，但他们所知道的已经引起了人们的担忧。这项新的研究表明，煮沸的自来水可能是限制摄入的一种工具。苏格兰格拉斯哥大学的环境工程师Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay没有参与这项研究，她告诉《新科学家》：“他们演示了微塑料如何在沸腾过程中被捕获的方式很不错。我们应该考虑升级饮用水处理厂，以便去除微塑料。”
