A Lot of RubbishWith dumps filling up fast, America is finally embracing （adopt） a new garbage ethic. 由于垃圾场正在很快被填满，美国终于采用新的垃圾处理方法。By William J. CookAmerica, unhappily, is bullish(like a bull) on garbage. Our production of refuse, now about 160 million tons a year, will rise to 193 million tons by the end of the century if nothing is done. This growing effluence( production, making) of affluence (wellbeing), 31/2 pounds a day for every American and rising, is a byproduct of our consumer society, whose watchwords (口号) are convenience, ready to use and throw-away. And it has become a major national environmental issue, forcing citizens, elected officials and private companies to give serious thought to rubbish. 让人感到失望的是，美国的垃圾数量急剧增加。美国现在每年产生大约1亿6千万吨废物，但是如果不采取适当措施进行控制的话，到本世纪末该数字将会攀升到1亿9千3百万吨。我们一直宣扬所谓的“便捷”“方便”和“一次性”，现在平均每个美国人每天产生3.5 磅并且该数字一直还在增加，富足的生活产生的垃圾，是我们这个消费社会的副产品。这已经成为一个举国关注的焦点问题，迫使市民，政府官员以及私营公司齐心应对垃圾处理问题。The contentious（argumentative, arousing dispute） reality is that the historically cheap and simple solution to trash -dumping it in a landfill just beyond the edge of townis no longer workable, particularly around major cities. 一个不争的现实就是：传统的低廉且简单的垃圾处理方法直接把垃圾倒这位于城市边缘的垃圾掩埋场是行不通了，尤其是在一些大城市周围更是不可能。Old dumps, which now get 80 percent of all garbage, are filling up, and new ones have become virtually (almost) impossible to buildthe result of skyrocketing (increasing very fast) land costs, increasingly stringent(strict) environmental regulations and shrill public opposition to new landfills in my back-yard. 现在接收全部垃圾总量的80%的那些早期的垃圾掩埋场很快就被填满了，但由于低价飞涨，日益严格的环保规定以及公众强烈反对在“他们的后院建垃圾场”， 要建造新的垃圾场几乎不可能。 Five years from now. forecasts Bruce Weddle, director of the Environmental Protection Agencys municipal solid-waste program, well have only half the number of landfills operating.” 环境保护局负责固体市政固体废物处理项目的负责人 Bruce Weddle 预计，“未来5年后，现在的垃圾掩埋场将只有半数能够继续运营。”With this grim （gloomy, serious） prospect, new methods are required, all variations on the only four ways available to deal with garbage: Bury it, burn it. recycle itor dont make as much in the first place. 在这种严峻的形势下，研究新的垃圾处理方法势在必行。之前，垃圾处理大都源于传统的那四种垃圾处理方法，即掩埋，焚烧，回收或者最初干脆就不制造垃圾。Whats needed, experts say, is a sophisticated combination of all four, called integrated waste management, (in which valuable items are sorted out of the waste stream and turned into new products, and the rest are burned cleanly in a furnace( that also produces steam to generate electricity). Only the ash- a fraction of the original volume of trash, is then disposed of in carefully engineered landfills.6 但是专家们说，真正需要的是一种能够将传统的四种垃圾处理方法综合运用的“综合废物处理系统”：运用该系统，能够进行再次利用的物品能够从废物堆中挑选出来，用于生产新的产品。剩下的废物运送到焚化炉中进行彻底焚烧，热能产生的蒸汽将用来发电。最后，体积已经减少为焚烧前一小部分的那些灰烬会被运送到一个精心设计的掩埋场掩埋起来。Rhode Islands program serves as a model for the future. In 1986, the State Legislature passed a comprehensive plan, including mandatory recycling and waste-to-energy plants. designed to cut the volume going into landfills 90 percent by 1994. 罗德岛项目为未来垃圾处理树立了典范。1986年，州立法委员会通过一项综合计划，其中包括强制实行废物回收利用和垃圾发电厂，从而到1994年时，把需要掩埋的垃圾数量减少90%。Already, residents in more than half the state are separating their wastes so recyclable items can be collected; the rest will participate by next fall. Similar to the new curbside recycling programs under way in many U.S. cities, the Rhode Island effort provides every household with a 12 gallon blue box (made of recycled plastic) for tin and aluminum cans, glass containers and two types of plastic containers, the familiar soft-drink bottles and milk jugs. 超过半数的居民已经开始将垃圾分类放置，便于有用的废物进行回收，估计到明年秋天，全州剩余居民将都会参与到该项目中来。正如在美国很多大城市正在推广的一种路边废品回收计划那样，罗德岛给每个家庭配备了一个用回收塑料制成的12加仑的蓝色箱子，用来装锡罐，铝罐，玻璃罐，以及两种常见的饮料和牛奶塑料瓶。Old newspapers are stacked on top of the blue boxes, which are emptied into special trucks on the same day as regular garbage pickup-All this refuse is hauled(shipped) to Johnston, R. I. , where the nations most automated materials-recovery facility (MRF. pronounced murf) opened in April. 旧报纸通常是沓放在蓝色塑料箱的上面，每天当垃圾车来收取日常垃圾时，该蓝色塑料箱里的废物也会被专用卡车收走。所有废物都将被运到罗德岛Johnston中心，在那里装有全国自动化程度最高的“自动化物质回收设备” 已经于4月份开始投入使用。Newspapers are segregated（put aside） for sale (mostly to Eastern Europe and Korea), and the rest is dumped onto a MRF conveyor belt for sorting. A huge electromagnet picks off tin cans to be shredded(crush). The conveyor belt inclines steeply so that heavy glass bottles roll back down and off the belt to be sorted by color for sale to glass manufacturers.旧报纸被分拣出来出售（主要销往东欧和韩国），剩下的废品被倒在“自动化回收设施”的传送带上进行分拣。先是