本集内容

Using a smart bin to tackle food waste 用智能垃圾桶减少食物浪费

学习要点

有关“inventories 物品清单”的词汇

边看边答

What advantages are there to keeping tabs on what is being thrown out?

文字稿

This commercial kitchen in central London prepares one-and-a-half thousand meals a day. It provides catering for a museum and a conference centre.

这家位于伦敦市中心的商用厨房每天要做1500多份饭菜，供应给一家博物馆和一个会议中心。

Kitchens like these typically throw away 20% of the ingredients they buy. Some are thrown away as trimmings even though they are edible. And sometimes food ends up in the bin simply because it's not needed after all.

像这样的商用厨房一般会扔掉其所采购食材总量的20%。部分剩下的配料虽然可以食用但仍被丢弃。有时甚至仅因为不再需要某配料而将之丢弃。

To stop this happening, this kitchen has been using a new piece of technology which can simply be connected to a normal bin on scales. This is what's known as a smart bin. Kitchen staff use it like a supermarket self-checkout. The idea is to keep an accurate digital record of the food being thrown out. This helps the head chef make more informed choices.

为了阻止此类情况的发生，这家厨房使用了一种把垃圾筒和电子秤相连接的新技术。这就是所谓的“智能垃圾箱”。厨房工作人员像使用超市自助结账系统一样，用它来保存丢弃食物量的准确数字记录，从而帮厨师长作出更明智的食材选择。

Bill Owen, head chef
It was a shocker how many tonnage is actually saved through using this.

By keeping tabs on exactly what kind of food is being thrown out, the chef can adjust his orders of ingredients, but also improvise whole new menus based on what was previously being thrown away.

比尔·欧文厨师长
“让人惊奇的是通过使用这个技术，我们节省了很多吨食材。”

通过密切留意被丢弃食物的种类，厨师可以调整配料采购订单，同时也可以根据之前扔掉的食材来即兴创作全新的菜单。

Mark Zornes, Winnow smart bins
In an operation where you make a significant amount of your food in advance, you can typically cut food waste in half.

马克·佐恩斯 Winnow 智能垃圾桶
“对于一个可以提前大量生产食物的企业来说，使用这个技术能将其厨余垃圾减少一半。”

Do people actually have time on top of everything else to catalogue the stuff as they are putting it into the bin?

人们真的有时间在做其它工作的基础上去记录丢到垃圾桶的食物吗？

Bill Owen, head chef
They do. To start with, take a little while to get used to the bin system. It is just about familiarising yourself with where the buttons are.

比尔·欧文厨师长
“时间是有的。起初，需要花点时间来适应这个智能垃圾桶系统。熟悉各个按键在哪儿后就好了。”

However effective they may be there is one important factor that holds these smart bins back.

不论这些垃圾桶有多么好用，现有一个重要的因素使它们未能被大力推广。

Andrew Stephen, CEO, Sustainable Restaurant Association
Traditionally, smart bin technology has been at quite a high price point for particularly small operators. There is only a relatively small fraction that can afford that upfront implementation.

安德鲁·斯蒂芬可持续餐饮协会首席执行官
“一直以来，智能垃圾桶技术的价格对于小型企业来说偏高。只有一小部分企业能够负担的起前期安装费用。”

It seems that smart bins are just one part of the solution to the pressing problem of food waste.

看样子，智能垃圾箱只是解决食物浪费问题的部分答案。

词汇

accurate record 准确的记录

keeping tabs on 严密留意…动向

adjust 调整

catalogue 记录

你知道吗？

Every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted or lost globally. One quarter of this, or 325 million tonnes, would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people annually.

每年全球浪费或丢弃的粮食总量为13亿吨，其中四分之一，大约3.25亿吨，足以养活8亿7千万饥饿人口。