深陷垃圾堆(下)

　　In the poorest countries, especially in Africa, rubbish is still just dumped anywhere, and management is limited. But there is also comparatively little of it. A typical citizen of Lesotho produces 110 grams a day, one-fortieth as much as a typical citizen of Iceland (the country with the highest rubbish-generation rate per person). It is the economies that are booming that present the challenge(强调句). Many are now pouring money into dealing with trash. Narendra Modi’s government has earmarked $9.5bn for solid-waste management in its $30bn Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission. Indonesia is ploughing $1bn into its plastic-clean-up campaign. Authorities in Morocco believe that $300m they have invested in new sanitary landfills has already averted $440m in environmental damage. Many projects enjoy backing from the World Bank and other multilateral lenders. Others are promoted by grassroots organisations and entrepreneurs.

　　在最穷的国家，特别是非洲国家，垃圾仍然还只是随处倾倒，管理很有限。但是它们生成的垃圾量相对也较小。一个普通的莱索托人每天生成110克垃圾，是一个普通冰岛人生成垃圾量的四十分之一(冰岛是人均垃圾产量最高的国家)。带来挑战的是那些迅速发展中的经济体。它们当中有许多都在投钱处理垃圾。莫迪的政府已在其300亿美元的“清洁印度”任务中留出95亿美元专款用于固体废物管理。印尼正在为清理塑料的运动投入10亿美元。摩洛哥当局认为，他们为新垃圾填埋场投资的3亿美元已经避免了4.4亿美元的环境破坏损失。许多项目得到了世界银行和其他多边贷款机构的支持。其他一些由基层组织和企业家推动。

　　They are bearing fruit. Collection rates in low-income countries have nearly doubled to 39% between 2012 and 2016, even as the volume of waste rose by a third. In middle-income countries like China, they rose on average to 51%. Rates for industrial waste are also improving (in places that have industry), though they already tend to be high because factories produce large, predictable volumes of more homogeneous refuse that is often valuable (like metal scrap).

　　它们正在结出硕果。2012年至2016年期间，低收入国家的垃圾收集率几乎翻了一番，达到39%，尽管同期垃圾生成量增加了三分之一。在中国这样的中等收入国家，收集率已平均上升到51%。工业废物的收集率(在有工业的地方)也在提高，尽管它们往往本身就已很高，因为工厂生成的大量可预测的同质垃圾通常都有价值(如金属废料)。

　　As collection has improved, so has the next stage. China has emulated its rich Asian neighbours and embraced incineration. The Chinese authorities scrapped plans for some plants in the face of protests by local residents worried about air pollution. But they see incinerators as essential to tackling what the World Bank predicts could be a 50% rise in China’s solid waste by 2050. They are trying to convince residents that incinerators are clean and safe (as modern ones are, in places like Taiwan) by, for instance, promoting school trips to facilities. The number of incinerators in China has shot up from 57 in 2010 to more than 400. They now consume one-fifth of the 220m tonnes of municipal refuse that the Chinese disgorge each year.

　　随着收集的加强，下个阶段也得到了改进。中国仿效其富有的亚洲邻国，开始使用焚烧炉。地方民众因担心空气污染提出抗议，政府因此取消了部分工厂的兴建计划。但是，官员们认为，要应对世界银行预测的中国固体废物到2050年增加50%的问题，焚烧炉是必不可少的。他们正在采取鼓励学校开展参观焚烧厂的活动等办法，努力让居民信服焚烧炉是清洁和安全的(比如台湾等地使用的现代焚烧炉)。中国的焚烧炉数量已从2010年的57个猛增至400多个。现在它们共处理了中国人每年产生的2.2亿吨城市垃圾的五分之一。

　　Poorer countries (including Indonesia) continue to rely on landfills, but these have also been getting more sanitary. Bekasi, which receives 7,000 tonnes of rubbish a day, now covers trash heaps with black plastic that captures the methane gas and other pollutants. In 2008-2014 Morocco increased the proportion of rubbish deposited in sanitary landfills rather than open dumps from 10% to 53%. This is expected to rise to 80% once five additional facilities are completed.

　　较贫穷的国家(包括印尼)继续依赖垃圾填埋场，但这些填埋场也在变得更卫生。勿加泗每天接收7000吨垃圾，现在它把可捕获甲烷气体和其他污染物的黑色塑料覆盖在垃圾堆上。2008至2014年，摩洛哥将堆放在清洁填埋场而非露天垃圾堆的垃圾比例从10%增加到了53%。一旦另五个填埋场建成，这个比例预计将增至80%。

　　Many authorities enlist the private sector, while monitoring how it performs. Istanbul accelerated a switch to private providers in 2003 after discovering they were a third more efficient than the public sector. In Nepal operators are paid based on how many households get daily collection. Five Moroccan cities, home to a quarter of the kingdom’s people, use citizen report cards when deciding to renew contracts with providers. Collection rates in Lahore, Pakistan’s commercial capital, shot up from 51% to 88% once the city hired a private company to manage its rubbish. Lorries are monitored with GPS trackers to measure performance and ensure that unscrupulous trash collectors do not dump the stuff illegally rather than drive it to formal disposal sites.

　　许多政府寻求私营部门的帮助，同时监测其执行情况。伊斯坦布尔在发现私营企业比公共部门效率高三分之一后，于2003年加速转向私营供应商。尼泊尔根据有多少户家庭每天都能获得垃圾收集服务来向运营商支付报酬。容纳了摩洛哥四分之一人口的五座城市使用公民报告卡来决定是否与供应商续签合同。巴基斯坦商业中心拉合尔在雇用了一家私营企业管理垃圾后，收集率从51%飙升至88%。收集垃圾的卡车上装载了GPS跟踪器来测量成效，同时也能防止不负责任的垃圾收集商非法倾倒垃圾而不把垃圾送到正规处理场所。

　　Informal workers, or rag-pickers, remain an important part of the system. UN Habitat, the United Nations agency for human settlements, believes that such people can collect 50-100% of rubbish at no cost to municipalities. The World Bank estimates that they pick 20% of China’s municipal waste. “Waste-pickers know physics, chemistry, economics,” marvels Gonzalo Muñoz, founder and boss of TriCiclos, a Chilean waste-management company. “They don’t know they know—but they do.” That is just as well, for ordinary citizens lack this knowledge. In China, for instance, a new requirement for big cities to install colour-coded bins in public areas and buildings has shown mixed results, with few citizens knowing what to throw where.

　　非正式工人或拾荒者仍是该系统的重要组成。联合国人类住区规划部门“人居署”(UN Habitat)认为，这些人可以免费为市政当局收集一半乃至全部的垃圾。据世界银行估计，中国20%的城市垃圾是由拾荒者收集的。“拾荒者了解物理、化学和经济学，”智利废物管理公司TriCiclos的创始人兼老板贡萨洛·穆尼奥斯(Gonzalo Muñoz)表示，“他们不知道自己知道——但他们知道。”这就够好了，因为普通民众缺乏这方面的知识。例如，在中国，一项新规定要求大城市在公共区域和建筑物中摆放标注不同颜色的垃圾箱，但收效不一，因为很少有市民弄得清楚该往哪里扔什么。

　　This explains why the Chinese authorities tolerate informal waste-pickers. Local governments in other countries actively embrace the sector, which is thought to include more than 15m people worldwide. A Brazilian law from 2010 recognised co-operatives of such catadores as service providers. This granted them access to benefits such as pensions. Their national union won the rights to clean up football stadiums during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Technology is making informal collection more efficient. Mobile apps to match scavengers with rubbish producers are proliferating. Last year a free mobile app called Cataki, which links those throwing stuff away with those collecting it, was launched in São Paulo. Indian raddiwallahs in Bengaluru have used a similar app called “I Got Garbage” since 2014.

　　这就解释了中国政府为何会容忍非正规拾荒者。其他国家的地方政府积极接纳这个群体——据信全球共有超过1500万人。2010年巴西一项法律承认这类拾荒者聚集的合作社为服务供应商。这让他们获得了养老金等福利。他们的全国工会在2014年巴西世界杯期间争取到了清理足球场的权利。技术提升了非正规收集的效率。将拾荒者与垃圾制造者相匹配的移动应用大量涌现。去年，圣保罗推出了一款免费移动应用Cataki，把扔东西的人和收东西的人连接起来。自2014年以来，班加罗尔的拾荒者一直在用一款名叫“我有垃圾”(I Got Garbage)的类似的应用。

　　注：双语全文源自纽约时报中文网

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