227 Rubbish’s Recycling
227 垃圾回收
In 1993, New York State ordered stores to charge a deposit on beverage containers. Within a year, consumers had returned millions of aluminum cans and glass and plastic bottles. Plenty of companies were eager to accept the aluminum and glass as raw materials for new products. But because few could figure out what to do with the plastic, much of it would end up buried in landfills. The problem was not limited to New York. Unfortunately, there were too few uses for second-hand plastic.
1993年，纽约州要求所有的商店必须对饮料瓶收取押金。一年之内，消费者就把成千上万的铝罐，玻璃瓶和塑料瓶送回了商店。很多公司都愿意回收铝和玻璃制品作为生产新产品的原料，但是因为没有人想出处理塑料制品的办法，很多塑料制品就被埋到了垃圾填埋场中。这样的问题不仅只出现在纽约。让人遗憾的是利用二手塑料的途径太少了。
Today, one out of five plastic soda bottles is recycled in the United States. The reason for the change is that now there are dozens of companies across the country buying discarded plastic soda bottles and turning them into fence posts, paint brushes, etc.
如今，在美国，每五个塑料瓶中就有一个被回收利用。这是因为全国范围内有很多公司都愿意购买废旧塑料瓶来把它们加工成篱笆桩和画笔等。
As the New York experience shows, recycling involves more than simply separating valuable materials from the rest of the rubbish. A discard remains a discard until somebody figures out how to give it a second life —— and until economic arrangements exist to give that second life value. Without adequate markets to absorb materials collected for recycling, throwaways actually depress prices for used materials.
纽约的经验表明．回收利用不仅仅是将有用的材科和垃圾分开。废品依然是废品，除非有人找出重新利用废品的方法，并通过经济手段赋予它价值。如果没有足够的市场来吸收这些回收的材料的话，那么扔掉的垃圾实际上会使使用材料的价格下降。
Shrinking landfill space, and rising costs for burying and burning rubbish are forcing local governments to look more closely at recycling. In many areas, the East Coast especially, recycling is already the least expensive waste-management option. For every ton of waste recycled, a city avoids paying for its disposal, which, in parts of New York, amounts to saving of more than $100 per ton. Recycling also stimulates the local economy by creating jobs and trims the pollution control and energy costs of industries that make recycled products by giving them a more refined raw material.
垃圾填埋场越来越少，填埋垃圾和费用越来越高，这些都迫使地方政府更加关注废品许多地方，尤其在东海岸，回收利用已经成为处理垃圾的最经经济的方式了。每回收利用一吨废物，对每一个城市来说，当然也包括纽约，就能节省100多美元的垃圾处理费。另外，回收利用垃圾提供就业机会，刺激当地经济的发展，还能向工厂提供更精炼的原材料，从而降低工厂花的控制污染和能源消费上的费用。