Britain's food waste problem 英国的食物浪费问题

本集内容

学习要点

有关“waste 浪费”的词汇

边看边答

Name something mentioned in the report that wasted food has been used for.

文字稿

OK, it's past its sell-by date, but this is – or was – food. Grown, produced, processed and discarded; a super-size serving of stinking waste.

Paul Killoughery, Managing Director, Bio Collectors

“It's amazing how much food is thrown out, and it's amazing how long it's taken the message to get through. If you don't have to eat it, don't buy it.”

Overproduction is a fact of the modern food industry. Most of the surplus - good nutritious stuff - goes to waste. But here, there’s another way. At the FareShare charity they take the surplus and use it to feed the hungry.

Lindsay Boswell, Chief Executive, FareShare

“The thing that really drives us nuts is it's going to waste whilst there are people going hungry. We feed, at the moment, half a million people a week – half a million people a week - with this food; we do that to seven thousand frontline charity and community groups.”

Which is good news here at the Melton Learning Hub, where disadvantaged kids get good fresh food.

Sarah Cox, Manager, Melton Learning Hub

“Just for our kids, it means they get a hot meal… they definitely get a hot meal every day. Lots of different circumstances the young people come to us in and this is a brilliant way of using food that would, as you say, go to waste.”

Tackling the issue will mean dumping less food and doing more with whatever goes in the bin. Here it’s used to make valuable fertiliser to generate gas and electricity.

But most of our discarded food still goes to the incinerator or to landfill - perhaps the definition of waste in a hungry world.

好吧，这些食物垃圾都已经过了保质期，但是它们仍然是，或者说曾经是食物。这些食物残渣都曾被种植、加工，被丢弃；最后沦为一滩臭气熏天的超大号垃圾。

保罗·基罗利 Bio Collectors 公司总经理

“被人们丢掉的食物量大得惊人，而且令人吃惊的是，我们花了这么长的时间才让人们明白要珍惜食物这个道理。如果你不吃的话，就不要买。”

生产过剩是现代食品工业的一大事实。多数富余的食品，营养丰富，但最后仍沦为垃圾。但这里的人们想出了避免该状况发生的另一种方式。英国这家名为“食物分享计划”的慈善机构会把收集来的富余食物发给挨饿的人们。

琳赛·博斯维尔 FareShare 公司总裁

“让我们抓狂的是，在食物变为垃圾的同时还有人在挨饿。我们目前每周给五十万人提供食物 — 我们每周向五十万人提供这些原本会被浪费掉的食物；我们为七千个一线的慈善和社区团体提供这一服务。”

这对于梅尔顿学习中心来说是个好消息。在这里，贫困儿童们可以拿到有益健康的新鲜食物。

莎拉·考克斯梅尔顿学习中心经理

“对我们这里的孩子们来说，这意味着他们可以享用热餐…他们每天肯定会吃到热菜热饭。来到这里寻求帮助的年轻人的境遇彼此不同，然而正如你所说，把原本会浪费掉的食物给孩子们吃是有效利用富食品的绝佳方式。”

解决食物浪费问题将意味着降低食物的倾倒量和更好地利用那些原本会被扔掉的食物。在这里，人们用残渣来生产宝贵的肥料，从而生成煤气和电力。

但我们丢弃的大多食物仍难逃被扔进垃圾焚化炉或填埋场的命运，也许这就是在这个饥肠辘辘的世界中人们对“浪费”一词的定义吧。

词汇

sell-by date
出售截止日期，保质期

discarded
被丢弃的

overproduction
生产过剩

surplus
富余，过剩

landfill
垃圾填埋场

你知道吗？

‘Sell-by’ dates are aimed at the shopkeepers rather than shoppers. They indicate how long the food should remain on sale. A ‘use-by’ date is a really important one to take note of -after this date, the food may not be safe to eat.

“最迟销售”日期是用来提示店商而非顾客的标识。该日期表明食品可以被放在货架上出售的时间段。而“使用保质期”则是晚于最迟销售日期的另一个需要留意的重要期限，一旦过了这个日期，食品吃起来则可能不再安全。