Rainbow recycling “彩虹色” 的垃圾回收體系

本集內容

學習要點

有關 “categorisation（分類）” 的詞匯

邊看邊答

How are the bags sorted once they arrive at the recycling plant?

文字稿

Rainbow-coloured rubbish. This is the colourful waste created by a Swedish city with a unique recycling system. Like many cities in Sweden, Eskilstuna has an impressive recycling record. It met the EU’s 2020 target of recycling 50% of waste many years ago.

五顏六色的垃圾。這是一座瑞典城市用其獨特的回收利用系統制造的彩色垃圾。和瑞典的許多城市一樣，埃斯基爾斯蒂納在回收利用方面取得瞭令人贊嘆的成績。它在多年前就達到瞭歐盟 2020 年前回收 50% 垃圾的目標。

But almost everyone who lives here follows a strict recycling policy at home. People are expected to sort their household waste into seven separate categories, including food, textiles, cartons and metal. But what really makes the system stand out is the bright colour code.

幾乎每位居民在傢裡都遵循嚴格的回收政策，規定把生活垃圾分為七個不同的類別，包括食品、紡織物、硬紙盒及金屬。但真正讓這套體系脫穎而出的是明亮的顏色代碼。

The reason for this becomes clear at the city’s recycling plant. The bags arrive all jumbled up because they’re collected altogether, once a fortnight from outside people’s houses.

看看這座城市的回收廠，就明白這樣做的道理瞭。這些垃圾袋送來時全部混在一起，因為它們是每兩周從住戶門外一並收來的。

But thanks to those bright colours, scanners can select the bags and separate them efficiently. The food waste in green bags is processed on site into slurry to make biogas, which powers the city’s buses. One of the benefits of this method of recycling is that there is less cross-contamination, so more of the recycled waste can actually be used to make new things.

但由於垃圾袋色彩明亮，掃描器可以高效地把它們挑揀並分離開來。綠色袋子裡的食物垃圾會當場被加工成泥漿，制成為驅動城市公共汽車的沼氣動力。這種回收方法的一大好處是減少交叉污染，以助於把更多垃圾回收再利用。

Like the rest of Sweden, Eskilstuna is committed to sending zero waste from its citizens to landfill. Waste that cannot be recycled is incinerated at a local plant to generate electricity. This reduces reliance on fossil fuels, but does create greenhouse gases.

像瑞典其它地區一樣，埃斯基爾斯蒂納致力於將送往填埋場的市民垃圾數量降為零。不能回收的廢棄物會在當地發電廠焚燒。雖然這減少瞭對化石燃料的依賴，卻也產生瞭溫室氣體。

As countries around the world try to improve their recycling rates, some may look to Eskilstuna as an example to follow – as long as they think they can persuade their citizens to get busy sorting at home.

世界各國都在試圖提高垃圾回收率，一些國傢也會效仿埃斯基爾斯蒂納的做法，前提是要說服市民在傢中勤於分類。