What's the link between old-school music records and state-of-the-art research on microplastics? Most old records are made（使） from polyvinyl chloride（[化]氯化物）, which in slang people call vinyl. When I lower the stylus onto the record, there's evidently friction there, which creates tiny particles. And those tiny particles can turn into a big problem. Our resident DJ is Christian Naforsch, his daytime job, professor of ecology. I did a lot of DJing while I was at college and beforehand（事先）, starting with vinyl, then CDs and finally digital.

  I spent 20 years DJing in a Munich club. But now he's playing a different tune, hoping to rip（撕） the world of microplastics. Bayreuth, famous for its Richard Wagner opera house and annual festival. But while the town looks immaculately clean on the surface, there's a less visible problem lurking（ 潜伏） on the streets that Christian Naforsch has his sights on. Wherever he and his colleague go, they find the immediate culprit plastic waste. One day back when I started looking at the issue of plastic pollution, I decided to count the number of plastic fragments between my home and the supermarket.

  And over those two or three hundred meters, I spotted 52 fragments of plastic with the naked eye while walking. And if I'd bent down like this, I would have found a lot more. They're simply everywhere. You can see how abrasion（磨损） is creating more and more microplastic, all the white bits, a massive tiny particles decomposing（分解） into microplastic. So does this pose a danger to us? Right now, we believe it's the small fragments that present the greatest danger.

  With smaller particles, there's a bigger risk that instead of just staying in the digestive（消化的） tract（束） and being excreted（排泄）, they could pass into body tissue. And that could lead to inflammatory reactions. Visible plastic waste is unsightly, but relatively easy to dispose（去掉） of. Once it reaches the microscopic scale, however, it contaminates rivers, soil and the air, all vital for our survival. And this is precisely the issue the two men are investigating. What effect do microplastics have on the environment and on us?

  It's a problem affecting the entire planet. Microplastics have now even been found in snow on the Svalbard Archipelago（群岛） in the Arctic Circle, a disturbing（ 令人不安的） discovery. Can sewage（污水） treatment plants at least filter（滤波器） out microplastics from our water? Professor Christin Lafage from the University of Bayreuth is on a field trip. Behind, the municipal（市政的） sewage（污水） works, where the filtered wastewater is discharged（卸下） into the local river. His team has devised（设计） their own Manta trawl, a net for picking up the plastic particles.

  OK, time to launch Manta. With little data available until recently, it's a pioneering field of research that requires innovation on the part of the scientists. Like other research groups new to the issue, we thought it would be pretty straightforward（简单的）. Just a matter of going out, taking samples and performing an experiment. But these particles behave differently. They're a completely new class of substance and incredibly complex.

  People talk about microplastic in the environment. But it comes in a range of different shapes and sizes, different compositions（构成） and different basic plastics. It's a really complex subject. A challenge for the young research assistant. But also for a renowned（有名的） professor, who's not shy of pitching in on the physical side of research too. These particles are incredibly hard to capture because you need different analytical（分析的） methods, different forms of experiments and completely different sampling scenarios.

  It's a lot more difficult to detect them and to do risk assessments. It's really exciting. The first step in each survey is a distinctly low-tech affair, collecting and rinsing（冲洗） samples by hand. But actually finding the minute particles can be easier said than done. Put it all in and there you go. With a few particles you can see with your own eyes that they're plastic.

  Look, that little blue one here. And we'll see what all the white stuff is in the lab. But there's quite a lot in there. Germans tend to think of their country as a clean one. But take a closer look and you'll find this. And that's just one part of the problem.

  The researchers believe that microplastics enter rivers via an untold（ 无数的） array（数组） of roots. They want to know what impact they have once they get there. To assist their investigation of conditions on the bottom of the riverbed（河床）, they brought along a special pump（泵）, another instrument they developed themselves. Now carefully place it on top. The pump presses the water from down below through special aluminum filters. Their perforations are a fraction of a millimeter wide, enabling the researchers to fish out particles that are invisible（看不见的） to the human eye.

  They're hoping to gain new insights, almost like on a mission to Mars. Back in the university lab, it's a question of rinse and repeat. The aim is to reduce the filtrate so that it only contains the microscopically small plastic articles. The sample is now put under the microscope. Doctoral student Julia Miller uses a pipette to distribute the substance in small portions onto specimen slides. Now that they're visible, she can weed out the plastic particles by hand, one at a time.

  An extremely laborious（(指工作)艰苦的） task. But it's the only option she has for a precise examination of the isolated fibers. You can tell from the peaks（山顶） that it's polyethylene. Global research into microplastics is still a fairly new field, but one where the bio-aut university team is leading the way. It boasts（自夸） scientists from all manner of disciplines. Among them is Sima Arghaval, a professor of chemistry.

  Hello there Sima. Hi Christian, how are you? Good, how are you? Arghaval is interested in the global perspective. She's familiar with the problem of plastic waste from her native India, which has given her an added incentive. It's not solely（单独地） about pure research.

  We also want to develop new solutions. Sima Arghaval has been looking at where the plastic pollution chain begins and hopes to find alternative materials to prevent microplastics being created in the first place. She regularly consults colleagues from various scientific disciplines. This is very interesting to work（使工作） with other people because sometimes the same material, same problem you see from different angles. And it really makes them spas. But there's no spas or fun for the professor when it comes to the root of this growing global issue.

  Our garbage and what we do with it. Yes, correct here. Yes, plastic mule is a very long problem and the problem is when we don't manage our plastic waste properly, it is like cleaning my own yard and throwing this plastic waste into neighbor's yard.