国家地理 没有垃圾的世界可能存在吗(6)

The Romans, like the Phoenicians before them, also mined copper¹ from the rich deposits at Río Tinto in Spain. But they recycled too: They melted down bronze statues from conquered peoples to make weapons. Copper has always been a prime target for recyclers. Compared with sewage, it's scarce and valuable.

古罗马人和更早期的腓尼基人一样，在西班牙里奥廷托的富饶矿藏中开采铜。但他们也会回收。他们熔化被征服者的铜像，铸造武器。铜一向是回收者的主要目标。和粪尿相比，它更稀有，更贵重。

In the yard at the Aurubis copper smelter in Lünen, in the Ruhr region of western Germany, a large bust² of Lenin stands in a flower bed -- a souvenir of the many bronze Lenins melted here, from towns around communist East Germany, after East and West were reunited in 1990. Aurubis, Europe's largest copper producer, is also the world's largest copper recycler. When the Lünen plant was built in 1916, at the height of World War I, copper for artillery³ shells was in short supply, and Germans were pulling bronze bells out of church towers. "Since that day, this plant has exclusively done recycling," said Detlev Laser, the deputy plant manager.

在德国西部鲁尔区吕嫩市的奥如比斯炼铜厂的庭院里，一座巨大的列宁半身像耸立在花床之中，是在这里烧熔的诸多列宁像的余绪。当初它们来自1990年两德统一后的社会主义东德各城镇。奥如比斯是欧洲最大的精炼铜生厂商，也是世界最大的铜回收者。吕嫩的工厂在1916年一次世界大战高峰期间建起，当时铜制炮弹壳短缺，德国人因此从各个教堂的钟楼里卸出铜钟应急。“从那天起，这家工厂专做回收材料。”经理代理德特勒夫·拉泽说。

Copper, unlike plastic, say, can be recycled indefinitely without loss of quality -- it's a perfect circular material. The Lünen plant still processes bulk copper, mostly pipes and cables, but it has had to adapt to waste with much lower concentrations. As Europe has replaced landfills with municipal incinerators, a lot of slag⁴ is showing up containing bits of metal -- "because someone threw their cell phone in the trash" instead of the recycling bin⁵, Laser said.

铜与塑料不同，可以无限反复回收而不损质量，是完美循环材料。吕嫩的工厂仍然回收批量废铜，大部分是管道和缆线，但也不得不适应处理含铜量度较低的废料。在欧洲以市立焚化炉取代垃圾填埋场后，出现了许多仅含只铜片铁的废物--拉泽说，“因为有人把手机丢到垃圾桶里了”，而不是投入回收箱。

With Hendrik Roth, the plant's environmental manager, I watched an excavator drop bucketloads of electronic debris⁶, including laptops, onto a sloping conveyor that carried it toward a shredder -- the first of more than a dozen steps in the bewildering and deafening⁷ sorting process. At one station, a conveyor raced by, carrying hand-size shards⁹ of circuit boards. Some fell into an abyss; others leaped as if by their own volition¹⁰ onto a belt above. A camera system, Roth explained, was deciding whether each shard⁸ contained metal -- and if not, activating¹¹ an air jet under it at just the right instant.

我和环境经理亨德里克·罗特一起观看挖掘机抛下一桶一桶的电子残骸，包括笔记本电脑，投到倾斜的传送带上，送向粉碎机--这只是十几个纷乱嘈杂的分类过程中的第一步。在其中一站，一条传送带载着手掌大小的电路板飞速流过。其中一些落入深渊；其余的则好像活了一般跳上另一条传送带。罗特解释说，一套摄像系统判断各个电路板中是否存在金属--如果没有，则启动喷气吹走它。

1 copper   

n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的

参考例句：

• The students are asked to prove the purity of copper.要求学生们检验铜的纯度。
• Copper is a good medium for the conduction of heat and electricity.铜是热和电的良导体。

2 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

3 artillery   

n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队)

参考例句：

• This is a heavy artillery piece.这是一门重炮。
• The artillery has more firepower than the infantry.炮兵火力比步兵大。

4 slag   

n.熔渣，铁屑，矿渣；v.使变成熔渣，变熔渣

参考例句：

• Millions of tons of slag now go into building roads each year.每年有数百万吨炉渣用于铺路。
• The slag powder had been widely used as the additive in the cement and concrete.矿渣微粉作为水泥混凝土的掺和料已得到广泛应用。

5 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

6 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

7 deafening   

adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The noise of the siren was deafening her. 汽笛声震得她耳朵都快聋了。
• The noise of the machine was deafening. 机器的轰鸣声震耳欲聋。

8 shard   

n.（陶瓷器、瓦等的）破片，碎片

参考例句：

• Eyewitnesses spoke of rocks and shards of glass flying in the air.目击者称空中石块和玻璃碎片四溅。
• That's the same stuff we found in the shard.那与我们发现的碎片在材质上一样。

9 shards   

n.（玻璃、金属或其他硬物的）尖利的碎片( shard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyewitnesses spoke of rocks and shards of glass flying in the air. 目击者称空中石块和玻璃碎片四溅。 来自辞典例句
• Ward, Josh Billings, and a host of others have survived only in scattered shards of humour. 沃德、比林斯和许多别的作家能够留传下来的只是些幽默的残章断简。 来自辞典例句

10 volition   

n.意志；决意

参考例句：

• We like to think that everything we do and everything we think is a product of our volition.我们常常认为我们所做和所想的一切都出自自己的意愿。
• Makin said Mr Coombes had gone to the police of his own volition.梅金说库姆斯先生是主动去投案的。

11 activating   

活动的，活性的

参考例句：

• "I didn't say we'd got to stop activating the masses! “我并没说就此不发动！ 来自子夜部分
• Presumably both the very small size and activating influence of fluorine atoms contribute to this exception. 这大概是由于氟原子半径小和活性高这两个原因的影响，氟原子对这种例外做出了贡献。