Biggest plastic waste producer
美国制造最多塑料垃圾
When the US Environmental Protection Agency released its plan recently for addressing marine litter, it named five Asian nations as responsible for more than half of the plastic waste flowing into the oceans every year.
美国环境保护署近日发布了一项解决海洋垃圾问题的计划，点名指出五个亚洲国家要为每年流入海洋的塑料垃圾负主要责任。
But the US is by far the world's largest generator of plastic waste.
但目前美国才是世界上最大的塑料垃圾制造者。
Now, new research, published in Science Advances, reexamines the US's role as a plastic consumer and concludes that the country has much more work to do at home to manage its waste.
发表在《科学进展》上的一项新研究重新审视了美国作为塑料消费国的角色，并得出结论称，美国在处理国内垃圾方面还有很多工作要做。
It produced about 42 million metric tons of the stuff in 2016. Although the US accounted for just 4% of the global population in 2016, it generated 17% of all plastic waste.
美国2016年制造了大约4200万吨塑料垃圾，虽然当年美国人口仅占世界总人口的4%，却制造了世界上17%的塑料垃圾。
Meanwhile, less than 10% of American plastic waste is recycled, and the US has a 30-year history of shipping half of its recyclable plastic overseas, primarily to developing nations lacking the infrastructure to manage it.
与此同时，美国只有不到10%的塑料垃圾被回收利用，而美国将其一半的可回收塑料运往海外已有30年历史，主要是运往缺乏处理设施的发展中国家。