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When you don't clean your plate, microbes feast. And Americans are awfully good at feeding microbes, wasting some 222 million metric tons of food a year. That's a quarter of our food.
你要是不清理餐具，那么就让微生物饱餐一顿吧。美国人在培养微生物方面十分在行，他们每年要浪费大约2.22亿公吨的食物。相当于食物总量的四分之一。
Much of that wasted food ends up in garbage dumps, turned by microbes into methane, a powerful greenhouse gas and one of the primary culprits behind global warming.
大多数浪费掉的食物最终会被堆放在垃圾场，被微生物转化成沼气，沼气是一种强大的温室气体，是全球温室效应的罪魁祸首之一。
Now government officials in Massachusetts would like to ensure that restaurants, universities, hospitals and other large institutions don't exacerbate that problem. The idea is to make sure all that wasted food doesn't end up in landfills but instead becomes either compost or energy.
如今马赛诸塞州的政府官员们想要确保餐馆、大学、医院还有其他大型机构不将这个问题恶化。办法就是确保所有浪费的食物最终变成堆肥或者能量，而不是被扔到垃圾填埋场。
The same microbes that turn food into methane in a landfill can turn food into methane in a biodigester and that methane can then be used as a fuel. More importantly, from the Bay State's perspective, it will keep the state's landfills from filling up.
微生物能将垃圾场里的食物转化为沼气，同样也能将沼气池中的食物转化为沼气，这样沼气就能用作燃料了。更重要的是，从海湾州(美国马萨诸塞州的别称) 的角度来看，这能防止垃圾场被填满。
Of course, the methane from landfills can also be harvested, and often is. And, as the Pilgrims knew, it would be even smarter not to waste the food in the first place. But let's give thanks for another helping of new ways to curb climate change.
当然，也可以收集垃圾场的沼气。正如朝圣者们奉行的最聪明的做法还是把不浪费食物放在第一位。不过还是要感谢其他能帮助抑制气候变化的新方法。
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