经济危机下的中国破烂王（漢、英）
2009-3-23 08:56 | クリック数: (48) | コメント・口コミ数: (1)
China’s Big Recycling Market Is Sagging
经济危机下的中国破烂王
By DAN LEVIN
文章 丹·莱文 阿迪王译
Published: March 11, 2009
2009年3月11日 《纽约时报》
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.
But good days are getting harder to come by.
中国 北京——每天早晨，田文贵都肩披两条大麻袋，走出他安在桥下的“家”。从早到晚，他都在垃圾桶里淘换可乐瓶子、空酱罐、色拉油桶，然后把这些破烂卖给北京随处可见的废品收购站。赶上运气好的时候，他一天能挣20块钱（约3美元）。
不过，好运气越来越难赶上了。
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.
“Even trash has become worthless,” Mr. Tian said recently as he made his way to a collection center, his sacks nearly bursting.
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.
自打老田出了四川，曾经有数十亿产值的循环再生行业就已经随着全球经济危机而急剧衰落，废品的价格也随之下跌。可乐瓶子的价格比起夏天时候，落了一半的价。
“连废品都卖不出个价了”老田最近在去收购站的路上这样说，他的麻袋都快撑破了。
循环再生行业的衰退影响了众多老田那样的人，回收站的人以及再生加工工厂。这些工厂把可循环的废品加工成产品，发往全世界的商店和建筑工地。美国和欧洲的垃圾出口商发现：他们的中国客户在船到港后却拒绝接货。
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.
The effect is being felt acutely in China, the world’s largest garbage importer. The United States, for example, exported 11.6 million tons of recovered paper and cardboard last year to China, up from 2.1 million tons in 2000, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.
最终受害者只能是环境本身：大量无处堆放的垃圾已经威胁到人们的身体健康，而被拒绝的拉圾更是加重了环境的负担——本来这些垃圾是要被循环再利用的。
循环再生行业的衰退对中国的影响很大。中国是世界最大的垃圾进口国。比如根据美国林业与纸业协会统计：美国去年就向中国出口了1160万吨的回收纸张和纸板，而在2000年时这个数字仅为210万吨。
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.
“Chinese tradition is all about saving and being thrifty,” he said. “People here would rather have things repaired several times before abandoning them.”
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.
据中国物资再生协会（CRRA）的王永刚介绍，由于国内消费水平远远赶不上西方，中国循环再生行业的原料70%依赖进口。
“中国有勤俭节约的传统”，他说：“人们宁愿修修补补很多次，也不轻易扔东西。”
废品价格下跌太快了，以至于在去年秋天，仅仅时隔数周，当满载废旧火车轮和空狗粮罐头盒的货柜船抵达中国港口的时候，货值就已经远远低于驶离纽瓦克港、鹿特丹和洛杉矶时的价格了。
“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.
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. 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.
“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.”
布鲁斯·塞维奇说：“10月份以前都还好，之后我们就像掉下了悬崖。”他是美国废料再生工业协会（ISRI）的新闻发言人。美国废料再生工业协会是一个基本代表了美国废料再生行业的贸易组织。
2007年，美国向152个国家出口了总值220亿美元的可再生原料。而据该协会估计，现在的总值下降了50%~70%。西方卖家说他们一直为大量积压的废品大伤脑筋，而这些废品价格还很可能会继续下跌。雪上加霜的是，中国买家强烈要求重新签约，压低价格。在某些情况下，中国人会拒绝接受按照合同他们本应该接受的货物。
“香港的码头仍然积压着大批满载垃圾的货柜”，中国物资再生协会的王永刚说，“很难说什么时候货主会来提货。”
According to the association, a ton of copper scrap now sells for $3,000, down from more than $8,000 in 2007.
Tin is now selling for $5 a pound, down from $300. Paper has sagged by as much as 80 percent.
“People in this industry were once making a killing taking waste from overseas, but the era of huge profits is now over,” Mr. Wang said.
据中国物资再生协会介绍，一吨废铜的价格现在是3000美元，而在2007年则高达8000美元以上。
锡价是每磅5美元，2007年是300。纸张则下跌了近80%。
“这个行当的人曾经在洋垃圾上狠狠赚了一大笔，但是现在好日子到头了。”王永刚说。
The tough times are hitting Chinese recyclers at every level. Gao Zuxue’s family runs a small collection depot in central Beijing.
Standing in a dimly lighted, half-empty room that is usually packed with broken radiators, soda bottles and newspapers, Mr. Gao said he earned nearly $450 a month in the boom days of 2007. Now he is lucky to make $80.
“People aren’t selling their junk to us because they think the price is ridiculous,” he said.
艰难的时局打击了中国循环再生行业各个层次的从业者。高祖学一家在北京市中心经营着一家小小的废品收购站。
昏暗灯光下，站在一个半空的，而以前总是塞满破暖气片，可乐瓶子和旧报纸的小屋里，老高说他2007年在市场好的时候，一个月能挣3000多块（约450美元），现在，走运才550块（约80美元）。
“人们也不把废品卖给我们了，因为他们觉得价格低的太离谱。”他说
Many manufacturers that process imported recyclables are finding it difficult to stay in business.
“My goal is just to survive,” said Luo Guoliang, an executive at the Yang Xin Long Fu Company in Shandong province, which makes polyester and polypropylene filaments for fabric and rugs, all of it recycled material.
Mr. Luo said his company imported a third of its plastic from abroad last year, paying $1,200 for a ton of shredded plastic bottle flakes. While the company now pays half that amount, he said many of his domestic suppliers had closed, making it difficult to find the raw material for production.
很多靠加工洋垃圾为生的工厂也感到这个行业越来越难混了。
“我的目标就是生存。”罗国良说，他是山东阳鑫隆福公司的高管。这家公司生产用于纺布和地毯的涤纶和丙纶，全是再生产品。
老罗说去年他的公司三分之一的原料靠进口，花1200美元/吨的价格收购碎塑料。虽然现在的价格只有过去的一半，他说许多国内供货商都倒闭了，所以现在采购原料维持生产很难。
Yet, in China’s current malaise, the company has bigger concerns. Fearing instability, the local government has forbidden factories from laying off workers, even as sales evaporate.
“The damage from the economic crisis is unbearable.” Mr. Luo said.
然而，在中国当前经济不振的背景下，这家公司还有更大的烦恼。由于担心影响稳定，当地政府禁止企业裁员，即使企业根本卖不出去产品。
“经济危机造成的损失，我们没法承担” 老罗说。
Across the Pacific, waste traders in the United States are shutting mills, cutting production and selling their stock at fire-sale prices. George Adams, president of SA Recycling, which processes metal at 40 recycling plants in the western United States, said he wrote down $10 million in losses in October.
“That inventory is gone now, but the pain I won’t soon forget,” said Mr. Adams, who ships much of his product to China.
在太平洋彼岸，美国的破烂王们正在关闭作坊，削减产量并且用跳楼价甩卖他们积攒的废料。乔治·亚当斯，SA回收公司总裁，在美国西部经营着40家金属回收加工厂。据他自己说，在10月份他就产生了1000万美元的账面损失了。
“别看现在货是甩出去了，这份痛我可甩不出去。”乔治·亚当斯说。他的产品大部分是发往中国的。
Environmentalists and recycling experts worry about the impact of the recycling slump. With Western curbside recycling programs becoming less profitable, local governments are being forced to re-examine their programs as they struggle to balance budgets. In some cases, that means that office printouts and soda cans, once exported, went to landfills.
“It used to be that recyclers would pay governments for these goods,” said Mr. Savage of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. “But now governments have to pay recyclers. What was once a revenue stream is now a cost to cities.”
环保主义者和循环利用专家担心循环再生产业的萧条会带来什么影响。随着西方的“路边回收计划”变得无利可图，西方的地方政府被迫重新审视他们的计划，因为预算本来就已经很吃紧。在一些地方，这就意味着过去可以出口的办公废纸和可乐瓶子，现在就只能是送到垃圾填埋场。
“以前收废品的可以从政府手里买走这些物资”，美国废料再生工业协会的萨维奇说，“但是现在，政府反倒要给收废品的钱。对于市政当局来说，垃圾过去是收入来源，现在成了负担。”
While recycling executives say prices have bottomed out and in some cases have improved slightly — for copper and plastics, for example — they are bracing for tough times ahead as the global economic crisis wears on.
So, too, are the residents of Bajiacun, a village built on trash on the outskirts of Beijing, where hundreds of people earn a living from — and live among — other people’s castoffs.
不过，循环再生行业的大佬们声称价格已经见底。在某些情况下，这话稍微有点道理——比如废铜和废塑料的价格——但是，随着全球经济危机的深化，大佬们眼下还是要熬过很艰难的一段时间。
所以，对八家村的居民们来说，也是一样。这个小村庄位于北京近郊（位于海淀，分前八家村和后八家村——译者注），坐落在一片垃圾堆上。数百人在此，以垃圾为生，以垃圾为邻。
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.
“I know people who lost everything betting on recycling,” she said. Many of her neighbors have returned to the countryside, while the $735 her extended family would earn a month has shrunk to $360.
Sorting through discarded calligraphed 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?”
前两天，36岁的陈晓荣蹲在堆积如座座小山的大量废旧书本上，身旁是她用红砖头搭的简陋的小屋。一个用旧报纸堆成的高塔在她头顶若隐若现。
“我知道有人把家当都押在废品上，结果全赔了”她说。她一大家子人的月收入从5000块（约735美元）降到了2500块（约360美元），而她的许多邻居很多都已经回农村老家了。
她一边整理挑选出来的毛主席诗词，一边说：“中国的垃圾都收拾不过来呢，还要美国的干啥？”
Zhan Yingying and Tang Xuemei contributed research.
A version of this article appeared in print on March 12, 2009, on page B1 of the New York edition.
オリジナル文章は：New Yord Timesから
中国語訳文は：yeeyanから
