跟希哥学英语 第85期:纽约垃圾大发现

 　　What I discovered in New York City trash

　　I was about 10 years old on a camping trip with my dad in the Adirondack Mountains, a wilderness¹ area in the northern part of New York State. It was a beautiful day. The forest was sparkling. The sun made the leaves glow like stained glass, and if it weren't for the path we were following, we could almost pretend we were the first human beings to ever walk that land.

　　We got to our campsite. It was a lean-to on a bluff² looking over a crystal, beautiful lake, when I discovered a horror. Behind the lean-to was a dump, maybe 40 feet square with rotting apple cores and balled-up aluminum³ foil, and a dead sneaker. And I was astonished, I was very angry, and I was deeply confused. The campers who were too lazy to take out what they had brought in, who did they think would clean up after them?

　　That question stayed with me, and it simplified a little. Who cleans up after us? However you configure or wherever you place the us, who cleans up after us in Istanbul? Who cleans up after us in Rio or in Paris or in London? Here in New York, the Department of Sanitation⁴ cleans up after us, to the tune⁵ of 11,000 tons of garbage and 2,000 tons of recyclables every day. I wanted to get to know them as individuals. I wanted to understand who takes the job. What's it like to wear the uniform and bear that burden?

　　So I started a research project with them. I rode in the trucks and walked the routes and interviewed people in offices and facilities all over the city, and I learned a lot, but I was still an outsider. I needed to go deeper.

　　So I took the job as a sanitation worker. I didn't just ride in the trucks now. I drove the trucks. And I operated the mechanical brooms and I plowed⁶ the snow. It was a remarkable⁷ privilege and an amazing education.

　　Everyone asks about the smell. It's there, but it's not as prevalent as you think, and on days when it is really bad, you get used to it rather quickly. The weight takes a long time to get used to. I knew people who were several years on the job whose bodies were still adjusting to the burden of bearing on your body tons of trash every week.

　　Then there's the danger. According to the Bureau of Labor⁸ Statistics, sanitation work is one of the 10 most dangerous occupations in the country, and I learned why. You're in and out of traffic all day, and it's zooming¹⁰ around you. It just wants to get past you, so it's often the motorist is not paying attention. That's really bad for the worker. And then the garbage itself is full of hazards that often fly back out of the truck and do terrible harm.

　　纽约垃圾大发现

　　I also learned about the relentlessness¹¹ of trash. When you step off the curb¹² and you see a city from behind a truck, you come to understand that trash is like a force of nature unto itself. It never stops coming. It's also like a form of respiration¹³ or circulation. It must always be in motion.

　　And then there's the stigma¹⁴. You put on the uniform, and you become invisible until someone is upset with you for whatever reason like you've blocked traffic with your truck, or you're taking a break too close to their home, or you're drinking coffee in their diner, and they will come and scorn you, and tell you that they don't want you anywhere near them. I find the stigma especially ironic¹⁵, because I strongly believe that sanitation workers are the most important labor force on the streets of the city, for three reasons. They are the first guardians¹⁶ of public health. If they're not taking away trash efficiently¹⁷ and effectively every day, it starts to spill out of its containments, and the dangers inherent to it threaten us in very real ways. Diseases we've had in check for decades and centuries burst forth¹⁸ again and start to harm us. The economy needs them. If we can't throw out the old stuff, we have no room for the new stuff, so then the engines of the economy start to sputter¹⁹ when consumption is compromised. I'm not advocating capitalism²⁰, I'm just pointing out their relationship. And then there's what I call our average, necessary quotidian²¹ velocity²². By that I simply mean how fast we're used to moving in the contemporary day and age. We usually don't care for, repair, clean, carry around our coffee cup, our shopping bag, our bottle of water. We use them, we throw them out, we forget about them, because we know there's a workforce²³ on the other side that's going to take it all away.

　　So I want to suggest today a couple of ways to think about sanitation that will perhaps help ameliorate the stigma and bring them into this conversation of how to craft a city that is sustainable and humane²⁴. Their work, I think, is kind of liturgical²⁵. They're on the streets every day, rhythmically²⁶. They wear a uniform in many cities. You know when to expect them. And their work lets us do our work. They are almost a form of reassurance²⁷. The flow that they maintain keeps us safe from ourselves, from our own dross²⁸, our cast-offs, and that flow must be maintained always no matter what.

　　On the day after September 11 in 2001, I heard the growl²⁹ of a sanitation truck on the street, and I grabbed my infant son and I ran downstairs and there was a man doing his paper recycling route like he did every Wednesday. And I tried to thank him for doing his work on that day of all days, but I started to cry. And he looked at me, and he just nodded, and he said, "We're going to be okay. We're going to be okay." It was a little while later that I started my research with sanitation, and I met that man again. His name is Paulie, and we worked together many times, and we became good friends.

　　I want to believe that Paulie was right. We are going to be okay. But in our effort to reconfigure how we as a species exist on this planet, we must include and take account of all the costs, including the very real human cost of the labor. And we also would be well informed to reach out to the people who do that work and get their expertise³⁰ on how do we think about, how do we create systems around sustainability that perhaps take us from curbside recycling, which is a remarkable success across 40 years, across the United States and countries around the world, and lift us up to a broader horizon where we're looking at other forms of waste that could be lessened³¹ from manufacturing and industrial sources. Municipal waste, what we think of when we talk about garbage, accounts for three percent of the nation's waste stream. It's a remarkable statistic⁹.

　　So in the flow of your days, in the flow of your lives, next time you see someone whose job is to clean up after you, take a moment to acknowledge them. Take a moment to say thank you.

1 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

2 bluff   

v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗

参考例句：

• His threats are merely bluff.他的威胁仅仅是虚张声势。
• John is a deep card.No one can bluff him easily.约翰是个机灵鬼。谁也不容易欺骗他。

3 aluminum   

n.(aluminium)铝

参考例句：

• The aluminum sheets cannot be too much thicker than 0.04 inches.铝板厚度不能超过0.04英寸。
• During the launch phase,it would ride in a protective aluminum shell.在发射阶段，它盛在一只保护的铝壳里。

4 sanitation   

n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备

参考例句：

• The location is exceptionally poor,viewed from the sanitation point.从卫生角度来看，这个地段非常糟糕。
• Many illnesses are the result,f inadequate sanitation.许多疾病都来源于不健全的卫生设施。

5 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

6 plowed   

v.耕( plow的过去式和过去分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• They plowed nearly 100,000 acres of virgin moorland. 他们犁了将近10万英亩未开垦的高沼地。 来自辞典例句
• He plowed the land and then sowed the seeds. 他先翻土，然后播种。 来自辞典例句

7 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

8 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

9 statistic   

n.统计量；adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• Official statistics show real wages declining by 24%.官方统计数字表明实际工资下降了24%。
• There are no reliable statistics for the number of deaths in the battle.关于阵亡人数没有可靠的统计数字。

10 zooming   

adj.快速上升的v.（飞机、汽车等）急速移动( zoom的过去分词 )；（价格、费用等）急升，猛涨

参考例句：

• Zooming and panning are navigational tools for exploring 2D and 3D information. 缩放和平移是浏览二维和三维信息的导航工具。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Panning and zooming, especially when paired together, create navigation difficulties for users. 对于用户来说，平移和缩放一起使用时，产生了更多的导航困难。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

11 relentlessness   

参考例句：

• Scully: are in the basement because they are afraid of you of your relentlessness. 史考莉：你在地下室是因为他们怕你，怕你的义无反顾。
• Although the rain pours the utmost relentlessness, ceasing all outdoor activities, the manthethe heavens and smiles. 尽管无休止的倾盆大雨迫使所有户外劳作停止，但农民会为此兴奋不已。

12 curb   

n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制

参考例句：

• I could not curb my anger.我按捺不住我的愤怒。
• You must curb your daughter when you are in church.你在教堂时必须管住你的女儿。

13 respiration   

n.呼吸作用；一次呼吸；植物光合作用

参考例句：

• They tried artificial respiration but it was of no avail.他们试做人工呼吸，可是无效。
• They made frequent checks on his respiration,pulse and blood.他们经常检查他的呼吸、脉搏和血液。

14 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

15 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

16 guardians   

监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者

参考例句：

• Farmers should be guardians of the countryside. 农民应是乡村的保卫者。
• The police are guardians of law and order. 警察是法律和秩序的护卫者。

17 efficiently   

adv.高效率地，有能力地

参考例句：

• The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
• Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。

18 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

19 sputter   

n.喷溅声；v.喷溅

参考例句：

• The engine gave a sputter and died.引擎发出一阵劈啪声就熄火了。
• Engines sputtered to life again.发动机噼啪噼啪地重新开动了。

20 capitalism   

n.资本主义

参考例句：

• The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。
• Capitalism began to develop in Russia in the 19th century.十九世纪资本主义在俄国开始发展。

21 quotidian   

adj.每日的，平凡的

参考例句：

• Television has become part of our quotidian existence.电视已成为我们日常生活的一部分。
• Most solutions to the problem of global warming are tediousl,almost oppressively,quotidian.大多数应对全球变暖的措施都是冗长乏味，几近压制，以及司空见惯的。

22 velocity   

n.速度，速率

参考例句：

• Einstein's theory links energy with mass and velocity of light.爱因斯坦的理论把能量同质量和光速联系起来。
• The velocity of light is about 300000 kilometres per second.光速约为每秒300000公里。

23 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

24 humane   

adj.人道的，富有同情心的

参考例句：

• Is it humane to kill animals for food?宰杀牲畜来吃合乎人道吗？
• Their aim is for a more just and humane society.他们的目标是建立一个更加公正、博爱的社会。

25 liturgical   

adj.礼拜仪式的

参考例句：

• This period corresponds with the liturgical season of Christmas.这个时期与圣诞节的礼拜季节相一致。
• This is a book of liturgical forms.这是一本关于礼拜仪式的书。

26 rhythmically   

adv.有节奏地

参考例句：

• A pigeon strutted along the roof, cooing rhythmically. 一只鸽子沿着屋顶大摇大摆地走，有节奏地咕咕叫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Exposures of rhythmically banded protore are common in the workings. 在工作面中常见有韵律条带“原矿石”。 来自辞典例句

27 reassurance   

n.使放心，使消除疑虑

参考例句：

• He drew reassurance from the enthusiastic applause.热烈的掌声使他获得了信心。
• Reassurance is especially critical when it comes to military activities.消除疑虑在军事活动方面尤为关键。

28 dross   

n.渣滓；无用之物

参考例句：

• Caroline felt the value of the true ore,and knew the deception of the flashy dross.卡罗琳辨别出了真金的价值，知道那种炫耀的铁渣只有迷惑人的外表。
• The best players go off to the big clubs,leaving us the dross.最好的队员都投奔大俱乐部去了，就只给我们剩下些不中用的人。

29 growl   

v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣

参考例句：

• The dog was biting,growling and wagging its tail.那条狗在一边撕咬一边低声吼叫，尾巴也跟着摇摆。
• The car growls along rutted streets.汽车在车辙纵横的街上一路轰鸣。

30 expertise   

n.专门知识(或技能等)，专长

参考例句：

• We were amazed at his expertise on the ski slopes.他斜坡滑雪的技能使我们赞叹不已。
• You really have the technical expertise in a new breakthrough.让你真正在专业技术上有一个全新的突破。

31 lessened   

减少的，减弱的

参考例句：

• Listening to the speech through an interpreter lessened its impact somewhat. 演讲辞通过翻译的嘴说出来，多少削弱了演讲的力量。
• The flight to suburbia lessened the number of middle-class families living within the city. 随着迁往郊外的风行，住在城内的中产家庭减少了。