2018.11.1经济学人官译：垃圾堆

Two worlds

Down in the dumps

The poor world and the rich world face very different problems with their waste

两个世界

深陷垃圾堆

穷国和富国的垃圾难题很不一样

EVERY MORNING, JUST before 8am, a digger stretches out its steel limb from the bank of the Ciliwung river in central Jakarta. It claws load upon load of stinking rubbish from a barrier stretched across the stream and deposits it into the back of an orange lorry. A city employee stands by, one of 5,000 people working in pasukan oranye (orange teams), which dredge hundreds of tonnes of waste every day from the filthy waterways of the Indonesian capital. A rag-picker, treading precariously, sniffs for plastic bottles and other recyclables. Once full, the lorry departs for Bekasi landfill. There, amid more stench, dozens of waste-pickers mill around beside the swinging arms of the machines that unload the dripping rubbish. Their bounty is divided meticulously and sold on to scrap dealers or reprocessing facilities. The remaining trash is rearranged into landfill.

每天早上快到八点时，一台挖掘机从雅加达市中心的芝利翁河（Ciliwung）河岸伸出它的钢臂。它从横跨河流的一道障碍物上一次次舀起散发着恶臭的垃圾，将它们倾倒在一辆橙色卡车的后部。一名市政雇员守在一旁。他是“橙色团队”的5000名成员之一，这个队伍每天从印尼首都污秽的水道里疏通出成百上千吨垃圾。一名拾荒者小心翼翼地踩在垃圾堆上，翻捡着塑料瓶和其他可回收物品。一旦装满了垃圾，卡车就会开往勿加泗（Bekasi）的垃圾填埋场。在那个更加臭气冲天的地方，摆动着的机械臂从车上卸下湿淋淋的垃圾，几十个拾荒者在旁边来回走动。他们寻获的“奖赏”被一丝不苟地分类，然后卖给废品经销商或回收工厂。余下的垃圾就安置在了填埋场里。

In many parts of the developing world formal collection is expanding. There are now some 6,000 community waste banks in Indonesia, where residents deposit recyclables in exchange for cash. Once rubbish makes it to the waste-management site, the systems can be relatively efficient. The problem is getting a nation’s refuse to such sites in the first place, when door-to-door collection is still rare, and households and businesses seldom sort their garbage.

在发展中国家的许多地方，正规垃圾收集正在扩大。目前印尼有约6000个社区废品回收站，居民在那里存入可回收物品，换取现金。一旦垃圾进入了废品管理站点，就进入了一个相对高效的系统。问题是，挨家挨户的收集仍然罕见，而家庭和企业很少给自己的垃圾分类，如何让全国的垃圾首先能抵达这类站点是个难题。

More than 14,000km from Jakarta, in San Jose, California, trash is arriving at the Newby Island waste-management plant. As in most developed nations, getting it there is not the problem. Domestic and commercial waste is collected from homes and offices efficiently. The difficulties start when the rubbish arrives. With labour costs high, there are no rag-pickers to sift through everything and work out what is worth recycling. The problem here is in the sorting. Aluminium cans are easy to deal with because they are all the same. But different types of plastics cannot be recycled together and machines do not have the sophistication to tell one type from another. So a lot goes to landfill or incineration, mixed with the remaining worthless waste. And now, suddenly, China has stopped accepting imports of low-grade plastic and paper, so Newby Island no longer has a place to send the mixed garbage that it lacks the hands to separate.

在距雅加达1.4万多公里的加州圣何塞，垃圾正在抵达“纽比岛”（Newby Island）废品管理工厂。和大多数发达国家一样，把垃圾运到这里并非问题所在。从住所和办公室收集家庭和商业垃圾的过程很高效。麻烦是从垃圾运抵管理站后开始的。因为劳动力成本很高，并没有拾荒者来把所有垃圾筛选一遍，找出值得回收的东西。这里的难点在分类。铝罐很容易处理，因为它们一模一样。但不同类型的塑料不能一起回收利用，而机器还没有先进到能区分不同的塑料。因此很多可回收物都和其他无用的垃圾一起被送进填埋场或焚烧炉。而现在，突然之间，中国停止接受低纯度废塑料和纸张进口了，纽比岛这些缺乏人力来分类的混合垃圾无处可送了。

Both processes—in the developed and the developing world—are part of a global system that has improved substantially in recent decades as patterns of consumption, and therefore waste disposal, have changed. But both are under strain, as the volume of rubbish has increased with economic growth and as the global garbage industry has changed.

近几十年来，随着消费模式的改变，垃圾的处理方式也已发生变化，这个环节的全球系统已经取得了实质性改善，其中包括上述在发达国家和发展中国家发生的两种过程。但是，随着经济增长导致垃圾量增加以及全球垃圾产业发生变化，两者都在承受压力。

The improvements at Bekasi are part of a broader trend of developing-world governments finally grasping that proper rubbish collection is more than just keeping your streets smelling nice. It is a vital part of public health. Stinting on rubbish means paying more for hospitals. Numerous studies have shown that life in areas with patchy collection increases the risk of diseases as well as neurological conditions. In 2016 consultants at McKinsey calculated that burning, dumping or discharging a tonne of rubbish into waterways cost south Asian economies $375 through pollution and disease, against $50-100 required for basic systems to dispose of that same tonne properly.

勿加泗垃圾处理的改进反映了一个广泛的趋势：发展中国家的政府最终懂得，正确的垃圾收集不仅仅是为了让街道空气清新，而是公共卫生极为重要的一部分。在垃圾处理上省钱意味着要为看病花更多钱。大量研究表明，在垃圾收集不足的地区生活会增加罹患疾病和神经系统疾病的风险。2016年，据麦肯锡的顾问们估算，燃烧、随意倾倒或排放一吨垃圾进水道使得南亚经济体因污染和疾病而损失375美元，而以基本设施妥善处理这一吨垃圾需花费50到100美元。

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. 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，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”任务中辟出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，他们为新的更清洁的填埋场投资的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 酬。容纳了摩洛哥四分之一人口的五座城市使用公民 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 Mu?oz, 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 Mu?oz）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 S?o 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。

Americans talk trash

美国人空谈垃圾

In rich countries like America, the absence of professional waste-pickers presents a problem. The general public is not very good at sorting rubbish. Households and businesses serviced by municipal waste-management providers may actually have got worse at sorting in the past 20 years, says Peter Keller of Republic Services, America’s second-biggest waste-management firm, which runs Newby Island in San Jose.

在美国这样的富裕国家，缺乏专职拾荒者是个问题。普通大众不善于给垃圾分类。圣何塞纽比岛的运营商、美国第二大废品管理公司Republic Services的彼得·凯勒（Peter Keller）表示，过去20年中，获得市政废品管理供应商服务的家庭和企业在垃圾分类上可能愈发“退化”了。

Citizens of rich countries, where almost 100% of municipal waste gets collected, take such services for granted—unless the collectors go on strike, as happened in the Belgian city of Ghent in early August, leaving streets in a stink for days. In some industrialised nations, increasingly, residents are charged based on volume (known as “pay-as-you-throw”). To encourage sorting, such schemes often exempt recyclables. In Taipei, the binmen will only accept unsorted general waste in official bags, which come in different sizes at different prices. They inspect recyclables to weed out cheats. The recyclables then proceed to materials-recovery facilities (MRFs) for further triage. General waste is whisked to incinerators or (now rarely in Taiwan’s case) landfills.

在城市垃圾几乎被百分百收集的富裕国家，民众认为这类服务是理所当然的——除非垃圾收集商罢工，就像8月初在比利时根特市（Ghent）发生的那样，街道臭味弥漫了好几天。在某些工业化国家，越来越多居民要根据自己丢弃垃圾的量缴费（称为“现扔现付”）。为鼓励分类，这类收费机制通常豁免可回收物。在台北，清洁工人只接受用官方包装袋收纳的未分类一般废弃物，根据袋子的尺寸不同收费不同。他们会检查可回收物以防“掺假”。然后，可回收物会被送进垃圾回收厂（MRF）做进一步分类。一般废物则被迅速运至焚烧炉或垃圾填埋场（台湾已很少采用后一种）。

In many parts of Europe and America rubbish collection is generally paid for by municipal taxes and the garbage disappears to huge facilities like Newby Island. The plant’s operator, Republic Services, runs 91 MRFs nationwide, next door to landfills (of which it runs 191) or incinerators (of which it owns 114) which burn waste to produce electricity. It receives 156 trucks carrying 1,600 tonnes each day from as far afield as Fresno, 200km to the east. That is down from 2,200 tonnes a day a few years ago. The volume of recyclables has reached 1,400 tonnes a day, a lot by American standards, says Mr Keller.

在欧洲和美国的许多地方，垃圾收集通常由市政税收负担，垃圾消失在纽比岛这样的大型设施中。该工厂的运营商Republic Services在全国范围内运行91座垃圾回收厂，设在垃圾填埋场（它运行着191个）或焚烧垃圾来发电的焚化炉（114个）附近。每天有156辆卡车运载1600吨垃圾到纽比岛，包括来自往东200公里远的弗雷斯诺（Fresno）。这比几年前的每天2200吨有所下降。凯勒表示，可回收物已达到每天1400吨，这按美国标准来说已经很多了。

That should come as no surprise. After all, inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay area pride themselves on their recycling prowess. San Francisco boasts a recycling rate of 80%, one of the highest of any rich-world city. San Franciscans may therefore be shocked to learn that a lot of them, as Mr Keller puts it, “aren’t very good at it”. “A pair of blue jeans can jam the whole line for an hour,” he groans. More than 100 sorters try to pluck such items from the stream before that happens. Even so, a big plant like Newby experiences on average five such stoppages every day. Such disruptions cost the city of Phoenix in Arizona $1m a year in stalled equipment and repairs.

这应该不足为奇。毕竟，旧金山湾区的居民为自己的回收能力感到自豪。旧金山的回收率达到了80%，在富裕国家的城市中名列前茅。因此，如果当地人听到凯勒说他们中有许多人“并不十分擅长这件事”，可能会很吃惊。“一条蓝色牛仔裤能让整条操作线堵塞一小时。”他哀叹道。在这发生前，100多台分拣机试图从垃圾流中移除这类物品。即便如此，像纽比岛这样的大型工厂每天平均要发生五次这样的暂停。亚利桑那州凤凰城每年因为这类中断引发的设备故障和维修损失100万美元。

Scott Smithline, who oversees recycling at California’s Environmental Protection Agency, cites two possible reasons. The first is that many people do not know what is recyclable. Beer bottles and soft-drink cans are, he says. Egg cartons and glossy magazines are not, for there is no market for the materials of which they are made. Some things are recyclable on their own, but not when combined, such as “paper” cups lined with plastic film. It is hard to blame consumers for feeling increasingly baffled, he admits.

加州环境保护局回收部门主管斯科特·史密斯莱恩（Scott Smithline）指出了两个可能的原因。首先是许多人不知道什么东西可回收。他说，啤酒瓶和软饮罐头可以。鸡蛋盒和光面杂志不可以，因为制作它们的材料没有市场。有些东西单独来说可以回收，混在一起就不行了，比如内衬塑料薄膜的“纸”杯。他承认，消费者觉得这件事越来越难了，这也怪不了他们。

The other problem is that residents only have to separate recyclables from non-recyclables (though compost bins for organic waste have appeared now, too). Cans, bottles and papers are all thrown into one bin. This mix can, to some degree, be sorted at plants like Newby, enabled by clever technology which uses optical sensors and magnets to separate materials automatically. These were no match for humans when it came to sorting, but were good enough for China’s recycling industry, when it took off in the 1990s, to supply the country’s growing ranks of manufacturers hungry for all manner of materials. It snapped up tonnes of imperfectly sorted Western waste, preferring it to the even more impure refuse available at home.

另一个问题是居民只需将可回收物与不可回收物分开丢弃（尽管现在又出现了投放有机垃圾的堆肥箱）。罐头、瓶子和纸张都被扔进了同一个箱子。利用有光学传感器和磁铁来自动分离材料的智能技术，这种混合物可以在纽比岛这样的工厂做一定程度的分类。在分拣方面，它们无法与人力匹敌，但对于中国的回收行业来说已经足够好——这个在上世纪90年代起飞的行业为本国不断壮大的、急需各种材料的制造商供货。它将海量分类不够完美的洋垃圾收归囊中，因为它们要好过本国更不纯净的垃圾。

As the volume of recyclables swelled in America and Europe, the quality of recycled output declined because everything was mixed in together. This did not trouble MRF operators so long as they could offload their increasingly impure stock abroad. Then China announced it would not accept any plastics or cardboard, and American waste-management companies have been scrambling to find what to do with their poor-quality waste.

随着美国和欧洲可回收垃圾的总量增加，分拣出来的回收品质量下降了，因为所有东西都混杂在一起。过去，这对垃圾回收厂的运营商来说不是问题，只要它们可以将越来越不纯正的回收品卸到国外就行。然后，中国宣布它不再接受任何塑料或纸板了，美国的废品管理公司都在急着为自己的劣质垃圾找寻去处。

Efforts are springing up to teach residents how better to sort their rubbish. Some American and European cities now pick up different materials on alternate days. Reverse-vending machines, which accept empty drinks bottles and return money to users, are appearing in supermarkets. More cities are adopting pay-as-you-throw schemes. Consumer habits will take longer to change. Developing countries need to concentrate on getting binmen to the kerb of every residence and help stop people throwing trash into rivers. The developed world needs to relearn how to recycle. The Chinese ban has lent all of this a new urgency.

一夜之间，各地都出现了指导居民如何更好地分类垃圾的活动。美国和欧洲的一些城市现在隔天收集不同种类的垃圾。“吃进”空饮料瓶、“吐出”现金的“反向自动售货机”出现在超市中。更多城市开始采用“现扔现付”机制。消费者需要更多时间来改变习惯。发展中国家需要集中精力把环卫工人送到每栋住宅的门口，并帮助阻止人们将垃圾扔进河里。发达国家需要重新学习如何回收利用。中国的禁令给所有这一切带来了新的紧迫感。?