1000年后，仍能找到落在海里的乐高积木

1000年后，仍能找到落在海里的乐高积木

The world's oceans are awash with millions of tiny plastic Lego pieces, and these toys-turned-pollutants are not going anywhere anytime soon.

全世界的海洋充斥着数以百万计的小塑料乐高积木，而这些玩具变成的污染物在短期内不会扩散到任何地方。

New research has found those classic Lego bricks take between 100 and 1,300 years to fully disintegrate at sea, depending on variations in the plastic's composition and the marine weathering it experiences.

新的研究发现，这些经典的乐高积木需要100到1300年的时间才能在海上完全分解，这取决于塑料成分的变化和它所经历的海洋风化。

In 1997, nearly 5 million bits of Lego on a container ship fell overboard. Estimates also predict that over 2 million blocks have been flushed down the toilet by children, and depending on how effective waste treatment was at the time, an unknown proportion of those flushed in the 70s and 80s may be bobbing around in the waves, too.

1997年，一艘集装箱船上近500万块乐高积木落水。据估计，超过200万块积木被儿童冲下厕所，根据当时垃圾处理的有效程度，70年代和80年代被冲下厕所的积木中，可能也有一部分在波浪中摇摆。

In the past decade, voluntary organisations like the LEGO Lost at Sea Project have recovered thousands of plastic pieces from our beaches, but if these toys are really as sturdy as the new research suggests, we've got our work cut out for us. In all likelihood, these tiny little blocks will keep coming in waves for centuries to come.

在过去的十年里，像“乐高海上迷路”项目这样的志愿组织，已经从我们的海滩上回收了数以千计的塑料碎片，但是如果这些玩具真的像新的研究表明的那样坚固，我们的工作就有待完成了。 在接下来的几个世纪里，这些微小的积木很可能会一波一波地冒出来。

"Lego is one of the most popular children's toys in history and part of its appeal has always been its durability," says Andrew Turner from the University of Plymouth, who studies the chemical properties of marine litter.

普利茅斯大学研究海洋垃圾化学特性的安德鲁·特纳说：“乐高是历史上最受欢迎的儿童玩具之一，它的一部分吸引力在于它的耐用性。”。

"It is specifically designed to be played with and handled, so it may not be especially surprising that despite potentially being in the sea for decades it isn't significantly worn down. However, the full extent of its durability was even a surprise to us."

“它是专门设计用来玩和处理的，所以尽管它可能在海里呆了几十年，但它并没有严重磨损，这可能并不特别令人惊讶。然而，它的完整持久性甚至让我们感到惊讶。”

Collecting 50 Lego blocks from the beaches of southwest England, researchers compared chemicals in the weathered samples to archived Lego blocks in their original condition.

研究人员从英格兰西南部的海滩上采集了50个乐高积木，将风化样品中的化学物质与原始状态下存档的乐高积木进行了比较。

The classic Lego brick is made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), and while the company hopes to use more sustainable materials by 2030, this tough polymer has already done more than enough harm.

经典的乐高积木是由丙烯腈-丁二烯-苯乙烯(ABS)制成的，虽然该公司希望到2030年使用更可持续的材料，但这种坚韧的聚合物已经造成了足够多的危害。

While weathered blocks from the beach showed various degrees of weakening, yellowing, blunting, fracturing and fouling, researchers were surprised to find the toys largely intact.

虽然来自海滩的风化块显示出不同程度的弱化、变黄、变钝、破裂和污垢，但研究人员惊讶地发现，这些玩具基本上完好无损。

"Based on mass difference among paired samples that are about 40 years old we estimate residence times in the marine environment on the order of hundreds of years," the authors write.

作者写道: “根据大约40年前的配对样本之间的质量差异，我们估计它们在海洋环境中的停留时间大约为数百年。”。