VOA慢速英语2019 在希腊爱琴海，潜水员发现了“塑料珊瑚湾”（在线收听）

In Greece’s Aegean Sea, Divers Find ’Gulf of Plastic Corals’

Like colorful corals, they rocked gently in the ocean current.

它们像五彩缤纷的珊瑚，在水下流动中摇摆不定。 

Only these were not beautiful natural reefs grown over centuries.They were plastic bags, stuck to the Aegean Sea floor since a waste site slid into the water eight years ago.

只是这些不是几个世纪以来生长的美丽的天然珊瑚礁。它们是塑料袋，自从8年前一个垃圾处理场坍塌入海以来，它们就被困在爱琴海海床上。

A team of divers and environmentalists pulled thousands of plastic bags from the water near Greece’s Andros island this month.The workers described what they found as a “gulf full of plastic corals.”

本月，一队潜水员和环保人士从希腊安德罗斯岛附近的水中打捞出数千个塑料袋。工作人员称他们发现的是一个“充满塑料珊瑚的海湾”。

Seas polluted with plastic have become one of the most shocking signs of human damage to the planet.

被塑料污染的海洋已经成为人类对地球造成破坏的最令人震惊的象征之一。 

“It was a very scary thing to see,” said Arabella Ross, a volunteer diver with Aegean Rebreath.The group carries out underwater and coastal clean-ups.

“这是一件非常可怕的事情，”阿拉贝拉·罗斯如是说道。她是“Aegean Rebreath”组织中的一名志愿者潜水员。该组织负责进行水下和海岸清理工作。

“It really shook me and I think it really shook everyone who saw it,” she added.

她补充说:“这真的让我很震惊，我想所有看到的人都很震惊。” 

The Mediterranean is among the seas with the highest levels of plastic pollution in the world, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a report in June.

世界自然基金会(WWF)在6月份的一份报告中称，地中海是全球塑料污染最严重的海域之一。 

Greece produces about 700,000 tons of plastic waste a year, or about 68 kilos per person, the WWF said.About 11,500 tons enter its seas every year.Almost 70% of that returns to the Greek coast, one of the longest in the world.

世界自然基金会称，希腊每年产生约70万吨塑料垃圾，人均约68公斤。每年约有11500吨进入其海洋。其中近70％返回希腊海岸，这是世界上最长的海岸之一。

The sea pollution off Andros is thought to date back to 2011, when heavy rain caused a waste site to collapse.Most of the waste fell into the sea.

安德罗斯岛的海洋污染可以追溯到2011年，当时大雨导致一个垃圾处理厂坍塌。大部分垃圾都被冲入海里。

Aegean Rebreath divers removed blue, black and yellow plastic bags caught between reefs and among fish.

该组织的潜水员在爱琴海海域努力摘除蓝色、黑色和黄色的塑料袋，它们缠在珊瑚礁之间，在鱼群中摇曳。

It was “like the paradise of the Caribbean Sea, where you find coral reefs everywhere of every color.It was the exact same thing, but instead of corals it was bags,” diver Arabella Ross said.

这些垃圾使得这块区域“就像加勒比海的天堂，在那里你可以找到各种颜色的珊瑚礁。它们看起来仿佛是完全相同的，但事实上它不是珊瑚，而是塑料袋。”潜水员阿拉贝拉·罗斯说。

The team managed to remove only a small part of the plastic waste they found, she said.

她表示，该团队只成功地清除了他们发现的一小部分塑料垃圾。 

They also pulled up 300 kilograms of old fishing traps – known as “ghost nets” – from Andros.In a separate operation in June off Salamina, a small island near Athens, they removed two tons.

他们还从安德罗斯打捞出300公斤的旧捕鱼陷阱 - 被称为“幽灵网”。今年6月，在雅典附近的一个小岛萨拉米娜(Salamina)的一次单独行动中，他们移除了两吨。

“If people are wondering where their rubbish ends up, we see it each time we go into the water,” Ross said.

罗斯说:“如果人们想知道他们垃圾的去向，我们每次下水都会看到这些垃圾。”