Every year, Americans flush 2.6 to 2.9 billion contact lenses down the drain, according to new research from Arizona State University. By tallying this detritus and studying how it persists in this environment, the study provides the first estimate of the potential burden of these tiny plastics, or microplastics.
根据美国亚利桑那州立大学的一项新研究，美国人每年要把26亿到29亿只隐形眼镜冲入下水道。通过对这些隐形眼镜碎屑进行统计并研究其如何在这种环境中持续存在，该研究首次估计了这些微小塑料或微塑料给环境带来的潜在负担。
“There’s been a lot of research done on single-use, lower-value plastics such as straws and plastic bags,” says Charles Rolsky, an ASU doctoral student and the study’s lead author. Yet no one has yet looked at how these everyday medical devices may contribute to pollution in our soil and waterways, he says.
To understand how lenses break down in sewage, Rolsky and his colleagues placed the corrective lenses in wastewater treatment tanks filled with hungry microorganisms. The team left the lenses in this brew for 14, 96 or 172 hours—the typical range of time waste may spend in such facilities—but they discovered the lenses had only begun to degrade slightly after 172 hours in this environment.
为了了解隐形眼镜在污水中是如何分解的，罗尔斯基和他的同事们将矫正镜片放入充满饥饿微生物的废水处理槽中。研究小组将镜片放置了14、96或172个小时——这是废弃物在这种环境中存在的一般时间范围，但他们发现在这种环境中，镜片在172小时后才开始轻微降解。
That failure to break down led the researchers to a startling conclusion: as much as 23,000 kilograms of lenses (about 50,000 pounds) may accumulate in sewage sludge in the U.S. each year. And because wastewater industry reports suggest of that waste is dumped into soils, the researchers estimate that 11,000 to 12,650 kilograms (about 24,000 to 28,000 pounds) of contaminant-harboring contact lens fragments end up in U.S. dirt annually. A still unknown amount may flow into oceans and rivers.
隐形眼镜的降解失败让研究人员得出了一个惊人的结论：在美国，每年有多达23 000公斤（约50 000磅）的隐形眼镜积聚在污泥中。废水处理行业的 告显示，大约55%的废水被倾倒在土壤中，研究人员估计每年有11 000到12 650公斤（约24 000到28 000磅）的隐形眼镜碎片污染物最终会进入美国的土壤中。可能流入海洋和河流的相关废弃物数量仍未可知。
The calculation of how many lenses end up in our wastewater plants and habitat hinged on a variety of data sources. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that about Americans wear contact lenses. By using data from the major contact lens manufacturers about the various types of contacts purchased, the ASU researchers were able to calculate that Americans wear a total of 13.2 to 14.7 billion lenses a year. Next the researchers surveyed more than 400 contact lens users about how they dispose of the products, finding that 21 percent discard their lenses down the toilet or sink. Those cumulative numbers helped them arrive at their estimate of more than 2.5 billion lenses residing within our sewage in a given year. The research was presented on Sunday at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting in Boston.
在我们的废水处理厂和生活环境中有多少只隐形眼镜的计算取决于各种数据源。美国疾病控制和预防中心称，大约有4 500万美国人戴隐形眼镜。通过使用主要隐形眼镜制造商关于购买各类隐形眼镜的数据，亚利桑那州立大学的研究人员计算出美国人每年佩戴的隐形眼镜总数为132亿到147亿只。接着，研究人员调查了400多位隐形眼镜使用者如何处理这些产品，他们发现21%的人把隐形眼镜扔进马桶或水槽里。这些累积数字使研究人员估计，一年有超过25亿只隐形眼镜集聚在下水道的污水中。该研究于周日在波士顿举行的美国化学学会年会上发表。
Big data on wastewater is largely unavailable, and quantifying the mass of microplastics is challenging, says Sherri Mason, a professor of chemistry at the State University of New York at Fredonia. “[The study researchers’] method of making assumptions and estimations is quite reasonable,” she adds.
纽约州立大学弗雷多尼亚分校的化学教授谢尔里·梅森说，废水的大数据在很大程度上是不可用的，量化微塑料的存量也是一项挑战。她补充说：”研究人员做出的假设和估计相当合理。”。
Once sewage laden with contact lens fragments is pumped onto soil it may seep into the environment in different ways, the researchers say. Rain could wash lenses into rivers and oceans, where they would float like tiny, tentacle-less jellyfish. Or they could sit in soil, desiccating in the sun. The latter scenario is not harmless, says Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering and one of the study’s authors. “Once these lenses dry, they become incredibly brittle and will very likely shatter into very small particles.” When these microplastics persist in the environment they can be consumed by animals, birds or insects and make their way into the food chain.
“Contacts are designed to absorb liquid, and that includes not just water but anything that’s in the water,” Mason says. “So I would be concerned that there would be more of an impact with these microplastics than with the other materials because of their ability to absorb various toxins in the environment, like pesticides and herbicides, and really hyper-concentrate these chemicals and move them into the food chain and up the food chain.”
梅森说：”隐形眼镜被设计成用来吸收液体，不仅包括水，还包括水中的任何物质。所以我担心，这些微塑料的影响会比其他材料更大，因为它们能吸收环境中的各种毒素，比如杀虫剂和除草剂，并将这些化学物质浓缩，然后进入食物链并在食物链中聚集。”
If filter feeders and small fish ingest the contacts, whether whole or shattered, it could cause a blockage in their bodily functions. In addition, “It’s been documented that organisms that ingest plastic have a lower propensity to feed because they already feel full. And because that’s not providing nutrients, it is possible for organisms like that to starve,” Rolsky says.
如果滤食性动物和小鱼吞食了这些隐形眼镜，不管是完整的还是破碎的，都可能导致它们身体功能的堵塞。此外，罗尔斯基说：”有证据表明，摄入塑料的生物进食的倾向性较低，因为它们已经感到饱了。但是由于塑料不能提供营养，对那些生物来说它们很可能会饿死。”
Although contact lens pollution is a concern, it is dwarfed by the of larger plastic that clogs our oceans every year. But unlike the daunting task of slashing grocery bag and water bottle use, there’s an easy way to prevent contact lenses from becoming pollutants, the ASU researchers note. “Definitely throw them in the solid waste compartment of the house—the garbage can is preferable to the sink or the toilet,” Rolsky says. Alternatively, Bausch & Lomb offers for any brand of contact lenses and packaging.
尽管隐形眼镜的污染是一个令人担忧的问题，但它与每年800万吨的大塑料相比，依然相形见绌。不过，亚利桑那州立大学的研究人员指出，与减少购物袋和水瓶使用这一艰巨任务不同，有一种简单的方法可以防止隐形眼镜成为污染物。罗尔斯基说：”一定要把它们扔到家里的固体垃圾箱里，垃圾桶比水池或马桶更好。”另外，博士伦公司为任何品牌的隐形眼镜和包装提供回收方案。
Contact lens companies often provide no package instructions about where to dispose of lenses, the ASU researchers note. But they hope to change that. “We’d love to have a dialogue [with manufacturers] and establish a solid protocol for consumers to dispose of or even recycle their contact lenses,” Rolsky says. “That might have a drastic effect all by itself.”
亚利桑那州立大学的研究人员指出，隐形眼镜公司通常没有提供关于在哪里处理隐形眼镜的包装说明。但他们希望改变这种情况。罗尔斯基说：”我们希望（与制造商）进行对话，为消费者达成一个可靠的协议，处理甚至回收他们的隐形眼镜。这本身可能会产生显著的影响。”
知识积累：
flush v. to get rid of sth with a sudden flow of water（用水）冲走
contact lenses 隐形眼镜
detritus n. natural waste material that is left after sth has been used or broken up (术语)风化物；残渣；腐殖质
startling adj. extremely unusual and surprising 惊人的；让人震惊的
discard v. to get rid of sth that you no longer want or need 丢弃；抛弃
cumulative adj. including all the amounts that have been added previously累积的
scenario n. a description of how things might happen in the future 设想；方案；预测
brittle adj. hard but easily broken 硬但易碎的；脆性的
blockage n. the state of being blocked 堵塞；阻塞
dwarf v. to make sth seem small or unimportant compared with sth else 使显得矮小；使相形见绌
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