by NPR Staff
December 21, 2010
Many people will receive a new computer or cell phone this holiday season — and throw out their old equipment. And when old TVs and computers end up in landfills, the toxic metals and flame retardants they contain can cause environmental problems.
在节日期间，许多人将会收到新的电脑或手机，并且把他们的旧电脑和旧手机扔掉。当旧电视和旧电脑最终被扔到垃圾填埋场时，其中含有的有毒金属和阻燃剂可能会造成环境问题。
Yet even recycling your e-waste, as it's called, does not always mean you're doing the right thing.
尽管所称的“电子垃圾”被回收，也并不意味着你的做法是正确的。
"The dirty little secret is that when you take [your electronic waste] to a recycler, instead of throwing it in a trashcan, about 80 percent of that material, very quickly, finds itself on a container ship going to a country like China, Nigeria, India, Vietnam, Pakistan — where very dirty things happen to it," says Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Basel Action Network, which works to keep toxic waste out of the environment.
Recyclers can make money from selling scavenged metal from electronic equipment, says Puckett, but the process to retrieve usable metals is typically extremely toxic. Workers who remove the metals often have no protective equipment and breathe in high levels of toxic chemicals, which are then released into the atmosphere. And most of the countries where the processing takes place — China, India, Ghana, Pakistan — do not have regulations in place to protect workers or prevent the primitive recycling operations.
Basel Action Network 公司是从事清除有毒废品工作的公司。Jim Puckett 是公司的执行董事，他说：“有一个肮脏的小秘密，当你把你的电子垃圾送给回收商而不是扔到垃圾箱里时，非常快，大约有80%的这类材料就会被装上集装箱船，他们将被运到像中国、尼日利亚、印度、越南、巴基斯坦，在那里，将会发生非常肮脏的事情。”
Puckett 说，回收商销售从电子设备中清除出的金属而从中获利，但是找出有用的金属的工艺过程是非常有害的。工人经常是在没有保护设施的情况下做清除金属的工作，吸进高度有毒的化学物质，这些化学物质又被排放到空气中。这些过程大多数是在中国、印度、加纳、巴基斯坦等国，这些国家没有法规保护工人或者阻止原始落后的回收利用工作。
Puckett describes a trip he took, to Guiya, China, in December 2001 as a "cyber-age nightmare."
Puckett 描述他于2001年到中国Guiya （译者注：也许是湖南的桂阳或者贵州的贵阳）的一次旅行，像一场“网络时代的噩梦”。
"It's the only part of the world where you'll go and see thousands of women on any given day that are sitting ... basically cooking printed circuit boards," he says. "As a result, they're breathing all of the brominated flame retardants and the lead and tin that are being heated up. You smell it in the air. You get headaches as soon as you enter this area. It really is quite sad."
他说，在世界上只有在这里，任何一天，你可以看到上千的妇女坐在那里，在煮电路板。结果是，他们正在吸着溴化的阻燃剂和正在被加热的铅和锡。你可以在空气中闻到味道。一进入这个地区你就会感到头痛。实在是很糟糕。
What You Should Do With Your Old Electronics
你应该如何处理你的旧电器呢？
So how does your computer or handheld electronic device end up in developing countries, where people remove usable metals by hand?
你的旧电脑或者手持电子设备在发展中国家是如何处理的？在那里他们通过人工提取有用的金属。
The answer, says Puckett, is that electronic recycling is a very lucrative business.
答案是，Puckett 说，电子设备回收利用是一项非常有利可图的生意。
"A recycler can be a recycler in name only," he says. "These so-called recyclers have found that that they can make a lot more money just exporting this material, because the U.S. laws completely allow it to happen. And they're able to externalize the real costs of doing things in an environmentally responsible way."
他说，回收商可以仅仅是名义上的，这些所谓的回收商发现，他们可以仅仅出口这些材料就能赚很多钱，因为美国法律完全允许这样做。他们可以以不违反环保法律的方式做这些事，又将实际的成本输出。
Hundreds of containers leave North America every day full of electronic waste, says Puckett.
据Puckett 说，每一天都有成百的集装箱装满电子垃圾离开北美。
"It's a massive trade and what has happened is, we've passed laws to make recycling become the password. And unfortunately, it's the password to a lot of very sad results," he says.
这是一项大规模的交易，是一直以来发生的事实。我们通过了法律使回收利用变成了密码。很不幸，是通向许许多多糟糕和悲哀的密码。
But there are ways to assure that your old electronic equipment is handled by a reputable recycler, says Puckett. Check to see if your recycler is first looking to see if old equipment can be reused.
Puckett 说，但是，有些方法可以保证你的旧电子设备是由有信誉的回收商来处理的。要搞清楚你的回收商是否首先检查旧的电子设备是否还能再利用。
"Reuse is always more environmentally sound," says Puckett. "If you can give that an extra life — an extra couple years — and so refurbishing is really what you want your recycler to do."
“再利用总是更环保的。如果你能够给它更长的生命，再多几年，翻新是你希望你的回收商所做的事。”
If refurbishment is not an option, reputable recyclers will use mechanical shredding and a high-tech separation device to take out the usable metals, which can then be sent to a smelter.
如果不能翻新，有信誉的回收商将使用机器将旧电子设备打碎，用高技术分离设备提炼出有用的金属，这些金属可以送去冶炼厂。
"There are about half a dozen smelters on the planet who are good environmental smelters," he says. "There's a whole lot of them that aren't. ... But that's how it's done, when you don't dump it off-shore. You very carefully take those metals, take those plastics and try to recycle each one of them separately."
有一些很好的环保的冶炼厂，也有许多不是的...。你不将电子垃圾倒到海外，但是结果又如何呢？要非常小心地处理这些金属、塑料，并且争取将他们每一项分开回收利用。
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