[ti:Amsterdam Tests ‘Bubble Barrier’ to Clean River] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]Amsterdam is testing a "bubble barrier" to help remove plastic from the city's waterways. [00:09.56]The project is called the Great Bubble Barrier. [00:14.36]The system aims to capture waste beneath the surface of the water. [00:21.16]The city launched the effort in November. [00:25.56]The non-profit group supporting the project hopes it can be used in other places if successful. [00:35.04]Francis Zoet is the technical director of the Great Bubble Barrier project. [00:41.28]She told Reuters, "A bubble barrier is basically a tube [00:46.84]that we place on the bottom of the river or canal, that has holes in it [00:52.24]and we press air through it; that creates a bubble curtain." [00:58.72]The tube lies diagonally across the canal. [01:04.04]The bubbles work with the flow of water in the canal [01:07.52]to float the waste and then move it into a collector on the side. [01:13.36]The bubbles do not interfere with passing boats. [01:18.40]They also do not cause a major problem for fish or birds. [01:24.68]Amsterdam already has four boats that collect about 42,000 kilograms of plastic a year. [01:35.28]But the boats can only pick up the waste on the surface. [01:40.40]They miss some smaller pieces altogether. [01:44.92]Roy Leysner is with Waternet, part of the local water authority [01:50.08]that is paying for the project with the City of Amsterdam. [01:55.76]He told Reuters, "Every piece of plastic which falls into the water in the canals [02:02.24]is eventually flowing out to the North Sea. We want to prevent that." [02:09.44]The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany [02:13.84]estimates that rivers carry up to 4 million metric tons of plastic into the world's oceans each year. [02:23.92]Another Dutch group has also launched a system to collect surface-level river waste using floating barriers. [02:32.80]Zoet of the Amsterdam project said the two ideas work well together. [02:38.96]She said, "We support basically every initiative that is focused on reducing the plastic soup." [02:48.56]I'm Jonathan Evans. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM