2022年12月六级第3套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

Scientists have created by accident an enzyme (酶) that breaks down plastic drinks bottles. The breakthrough could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis by enabling for the first time the full recycling of bottles.

科学家意外创造了一种能分解塑料饮料瓶的酶。这一突破可能通过首次实现瓶子的完全回收，帮助解决全球塑料污染危机。

The new research was spurred by the discovery in 2016 of the first bacterium that had naturally evolved to eat plastic at a waste dump in Japan. Scientists have now revealed the detailed structure of the crucial enzyme produced by the bug.

这项新研究源于2016年在日本一个垃圾场发现的第一种自然进化以塑料为食的细菌。科学家现已揭示了这种细菌产生的关键酶的详细结构。

An international team then adjusted the enzyme to see how it had evolved, but tests showed they had accidentally made the molecule even better at breaking down the plastic used for drinks bottles. "What actually turned out was we improved the enzyme, which was a bit of a shock," said head researcher Prof. McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK.

一个国际团队随后调整了酶以观察其进化过程，但测试显示他们意外地使这种分子在分解饮料瓶所用塑料方面表现更佳。英国朴茨茅斯大学的首席研究员McGeehan教授说：“实际上我们改进了酶，这有点令人震惊。”

Currently, the enzyme takes a few days to start breaking down the plastic, far faster than the centuries it takes in the oceans, but the researchers are optimistic this can be speeded up even further and become a viable large-scale process.

目前，这种酶需要几天时间开始分解塑料，远快于海洋中需要几个世纪的时间，但研究人员乐观地认为，这可以进一步加速，并成为可行的大规模过程。

"What we are hoping to do is use this enzyme to turn this plastic back into its original components, so we can literally recycle it back to plastic," said McGeehan. "It means we won't need to dig up any more oil and, fundamentally, it should reduce the amount of plastic in the environment."

McGeehan说：“我们希望用这种酶将塑料变回其原始成分，这样我们就能真正将其回收为塑料。这意味着我们不需要再开采更多石油，而且从根本上说，这应该减少环境中的塑料量。”

About 1 million plastic bottles are sold each minute around the globe and, with just 14% recycled, many end up in the oceans where they have polluted even the remotest parts, harming marine life and potentially people who eat seafood. "Plastic is incredibly resistant to degradation," said McGeehan. "It is one of these wonder materials that has been made a little bit too well."

全球每分钟售出约100万个塑料瓶，但只有14%被回收，许多最终进入海洋，污染了即使是最偏远的地区，危害海洋生物，并可能影响食用海鲜的人。McGeehan说：“塑料对降解极其耐受。它是一种有点过于出色的神奇材料。”

Currently those bottles that are recycled can only be turned into opaque fibres for clothing or carpets, while the new enzyme indicates a way to recycle old clear plastic bottles back into new clear plastic bottles.

目前，那些被回收的瓶子只能变成用于服装或地毯的不透明纤维，而这种新酶表明了一种将旧透明塑料瓶回收为新透明塑料瓶的方法。

"You are always up against the fact oil is cheap, so plastic is cheap," said McGeehan. "It is so easy for manufacturers to generate more of that stuff, rather than even try to recycle, but I believe there is a public interest here: perception is changing so much that companies are starting to look at how they can properly recycle these bottles."

McGeehan说：“你总是面临石油便宜，所以塑料也便宜的事实。制造商很容易生产更多这种东西，而不是尝试回收，但我相信这里有公众利益：观念正在迅速变化，以至于公司开始研究如何正确回收这些瓶子。”

Prof. Adisa Azapagic, at the University of Manchester in the UK, agreed the enzyme could be useful but added: "A full life-cycle assessment would be needed to ensure that the technology does not solve one environmental problem- waste- at the expense of others, including additional greenhouse gas emissions."

英国曼彻斯特大学的Adisa Azapagic教授同意这种酶可能有用，但补充说：“需要进行全面的生命周期评估，以确保该技术不会以牺牲其他问题（包括额外的温室气体排放）为代价来解决一个环境问题——废物。”