oceanteller

BEIJING
– Each morning Tian Wengui emerges from the home he makes under a
bridge here, two large sacks slung over his shoulder. Through the day,
and well into the night, he scours garbage cans for soda bottles, soy
sauce containers and cooking oil jugs. Selling the refuse to one of Beijing’s ubiquitous recycling depots, Mr. Tian can earn $3 on a good day.
每天早晨，田文貴（譯音）離開北京橋下棲身的窩，肩上搭兩個大袋子，從早忙到天已老黑，在垃圾桶裡翻尋裝汽水、醬油和食用油的瓶瓶罐罐，賣給北京到處可見的回收站。手氣好時，一天可以賣到3美元。

But good days are getting harder to come by.
但現在好日子越來越少。

Since Mr. Tian migrated from Sichuan
province, the multibillion-dollar recycling industry has gone into a
nosedive because of the global economic crisis and a concomitant fall
in commodity prices. Bottles now sell for half of what they did in the
summer.
田文貴從四川移居北京以來，由於世界經濟危機及伴隨而來的商品價格下跌，這兒營業額達數十億美元的資源回收業一落千丈。空瓶現在賣價僅及去夏之半。

“Even trash has become worthless,” Mr. Tian said recently as he made his way to a collection center, his sacks nearly bursting.
田文貴最近前往一個回收點時說：「連垃圾都賣不上錢了。」他的回收袋快塞爆了。

The
collapse of the recycling business has affected people like Mr. Tian,
the middlemen who buy the waste products and the factories that
refashion the recyclable waste into products bound for stores and
construction sites around the world. American and European waste
dealers who sell to China are finding that their shipments are being refused by clients when they arrive in Asia.
回收業生意一落千丈，已經影響田文貴這種人、收購廢棄物的中間商，以及把回收物再製成產品賣給全球各地商店和建築工地的工廠。把貨賣到中國的美歐廢棄物商還發現，貨運到亞洲時客戶拒收。

The
ultimate victim may be the environment, already overrun with enough
trash in places to threaten people’s health, now further burdened with
refuse that until recently would have been recycled.
環境可能是最終受害者。原本各處廢棄物已泛濫成災到危害身體健康的地步，現在更多出直到最近還回收再利用的部分。

The effect is being felt acutely in China, the world’s largest garbage importer. The United States, for example, exported 10.5 million metric tons of recovered paper and cardboard last year to China, up from 1.9 million metric tons in 2000, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.
身為舉世最大廢棄物進口國，中國也深刻感受到這種情況的影響。以美國為例，根據美國森林暨紙業協會統計，去年輸往中國的廢紙和硬紙板有1,050萬公噸，2000年時只有190萬公噸。

Because
Chinese consumption is far less developed than the West’s, more than 70
percent of the materials that feed the country’s recycling industry
must come from abroad, said Wang Yonggang, a spokesman for the China
National Resources Recycling Association.
中國物資再生協會發言人王永剛說，由於中國消費水平遠低於西方，中國回收處理業所需原料，七成以上靠進口。

“Chinese
tradition is all about saving and being thrifty,” he said. “People here
would rather have things repaired several times before abandoning
them.”
他說：「中國傳統講求節儉，這裡的人扔掉東西前，總要先修個幾回。」

The
drop in commodity prices was so rapid that in a matter of weeks last
fall container ships carrying used railroad wheels and empty dog food
cans arrived in Chinese ports worth far less than they had been when
they departed Newark, Rotterdam or Los Angeles.
商品價格滑落速度快得驚人，去年秋天貨櫃船載著廢火車車輪和空狗食罐抵達中國港口時，雖然距從紐華克、鹿特丹或洛杉磯啟航不過幾周，船貨的價值卻已大幅縮水。

“Everything was moving along just fine until October and then we fell off a cliff,” said Bruce Savage, a spokesman for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a trade organization that mostly represents American waste processing companies.
「美國回收處理業協會」大體上是代表美國廢棄物處理業的機構，發言人布魯斯．沙維奇說：「去年10月以前，一切都很順利，接著我們就墜落懸崖。」

The United States
exported $22 billion worth of recycled materials to 152 countries in
2007. Now the organization estimates the value of American recyclables
has decreased by 50 to 70 percent.
美國2007年出口220億美元回收物資到152個國家，如今該機構估計，現在出口值減少五到七成。

Western
dealers say they are grappling with mounting stockpiles whose value in
many cases continues to sink. To make matters worse, Chinese importers
have been demanding to renegotiate contracts drastically downward. In
some cases, they are refusing to accept shipments they already have a
contractual obligation to take.
西方廢物商說，他們正想盡辦法處理越堆越高的存貨，而且許多存貨越來越不值錢。雪上加霜的是，中國進口商一直要求重談合約，大幅下修貨量。有時他們甚至拒收依約必須收下的貨。

“There are still many containers full of waste sitting at the port in Hong Kong,” Mr. Wang, of China National Resources Recycling Association, said. “It’s hard to say when they’ll be picked up.”
中國物資再生協會發言人王永剛說：「香港港口還堆著無數裝滿廢棄物的貨櫃，很難說什麼時候貨主才會來提貨。」

The tough times are hitting Chinese recyclers at every level. Gao Zuxue’s family runs a small collection depot in central Beijing.
時機歹歹，中國回收業者各方面受到打擊。高祖學（譯音）家在北京市中心開了個小型回收站。

On
a recent day, Chen Xiaorong, 36, squatted on a vast island of
stockpiled notepads, magazines and schoolbooks near her tiny red-brick
shack, a tower of newspapers looming above her.
最近某一天，36歲的陳小蓉（譯音）在她簡陋的小紅磚屋旁，蹲坐在由記事手冊、雜誌和教科書堆成的一座山上。身後矗立著一堆高聳的報紙。

“I know people who lost everything betting on recycling,” she said.
她說：「我知道有人把身家全賭在回收業上，落得一文不名。」

Many
of her neighbors have returned to the countryside, while the $735 her
extended family would earn a month has shrunk to $360.
她鄰居有不少人回鄉下去了，而她們一家原本一個月可以賺735美元，現在已縮減到360美元。

Sorting through discarded sheets of Chairman Mao’s poems, she added, “China now has more garbage than it can digest. Do we really need America’s junk, too?”
她邊整理被丟棄的毛主席詩集，邊說：「中國現在自己的廢棄物都消化不了，還要收美國的嗎？」