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尿液回收能拯救水资源吗?

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Hello! Hi, I'm Barbara. Nice to meet you. Hi, thank you. This is amazing! Oh, thank you.

你好!嗨,我是芭芭拉。很高兴认识你。嗨,谢谢。这儿太棒了!哦,谢谢。

Earle Barnhart lives in a beautiful house in Falmouth with his wife, Hilda Maingay. There's a huge vegetable garden and fruit trees.

厄尔·巴恩哈特和他的妻子希尔达·梅因盖住在法尔茅斯(Falmouth)的一栋漂亮房子里。 那里有一个巨大的菜园,还有果树。

Oh, there's chickens!

噢,那里有鸡!

Oh, it's like a country club for the chickens.

哦,对鸡来说,这里就是个乡村俱乐部。

But I'm not here to see the chickens. I'm here to see the bathroom-because Earle and Hilda are known on Cape Cod as the "power couple of pee-cycling."

但我来这里并不是为了看鸡。我是来看浴室的——因为厄尔和希尔达在科德角被誉为“尿循环权力夫妇”。

Yes, they recycle their urine. All those luscious vegetables are grown on what Earle calls liquid gold.

是的,他们回收自己的尿液。那些美味的蔬菜都是靠厄尔所说的液体黄金种出来的。

In nature you have plants and animals, and the animals eat the plants, and the waste from the animals go back to the plants, and the nutrients go round and round. Humans don't do that at all.

在自然界中,有植物和动物,动物吃植物,动物的排泄物又会滋养植物,营养物质就这样循环往复。但人类不会这样做。

What most humans on Cape Cod do is use septic tanks.

科德角的大多数居民使用的是化粪池。

So all those nutrients leach into local bays and ponds, where they feed algae and invasive plants.

所有营养物质都会渗入当地的海湾和池塘,在那里它们滋养着藻类和入侵植物。

The algae and plants grow out of control, sucking up oxygen in the water, killing fish and turning the bottom to muck.

藻类和植物会失控疯长,吸收水中的氧气,导致鱼类缺氧死亡,并使海湾底部出现淤泥。

To solve that problem Falmouth had a plan.

为了解决这个问题,法尔茅斯制定了一个计划。

Falmouth, our town, was gonna spend $600 million over 40 years and build as many sewers as they could in that time.

法尔茅斯,我们的城镇,将在40年内花费6亿美元,在这段时间内尽可能多地建造下水道。

And that's a huge amount of money for a town of 30,000 people.

这对一个只有3万人的小镇来说是一笔巨额资金。

So we started studying alternatives to sewers.

于是,我们开始研究下水道的替代方案。

Earle and Hilda's research led them to the Rich Earth Institute, a Vermont nonprofit that studies urine diversion.

厄尔和希尔达的研究引导他们来到了富土研究所,这是一家位于佛蒙特州的非营利组织,专门研究尿液分流。

They learned that about 80 percent of the nitrogen in wastewater comes from urine ...

他们了解到废水中约80%的氮来自尿液。

And that if you could divert the urine only, you could divert 80 percent of the nitrogen that's causing the trouble.

而且只要能把尿液转移走,你就可以转移造成问题的80%的氮。

So they did: they bought urine-diverting toilets for their home. And Hilda is gonna show me one.

于是他们这样做了:他们给家中买了尿液分流马桶。希尔达要给我展示一下。

Okay, okay, so here we are in the bathroom. It looks like a normal toilet.

好,好,我们现在在浴室里。它看起来跟普通马桶一样。

Exactly.

确实。

So then you sit on it, and sort of the chute opens in the back, and that's where the poo goes-I see. And then there's, like, a little chute ...

你坐在上面,后面的斜槽就会打开,便便就从那里出去——明白了。然后,还有一个小斜槽…

For the urine in the front. It never fails.

前面的尿液会从那儿出去。从没出过问题。

Never fails? I went back to find out.

从没有问题过?我回去一探究竟。

Gonna shut the door here. Okay, I am actually going to use this toilet.

得把门关上。好,我要用一下这个马桶试试。

I am not going to tape this. But I will give a report back after. Stand by for the report.

这部分不能录。但我待会儿会给出反馈。等我的反馈哈。

Okay, well, overall that was pretty anticlimactic. So I just peed.

好吧,总的来说,有点唬人啊。我刚尿完。

The pee went down where it was supposed to go, and that was that.

尿去了它该去的地方,就这样。

The pee goes into a tank in the basement, and Hilda and Earle use it in their garden as fertilizer.

尿液被收集到了地下室的一个水箱里,希尔达和厄尔用它来当花园的肥料。

And they're not the only ones who consider urine to be precious liquid gold.

他们并不是唯一认为尿液是珍贵的液体黄金的人。

I would argue that wastewater is a resource.

我认为废水是一种资源。

You know, here in the United States we're not very good at reusing this resource, but in other parts of the world it's something that they wouldn't waste.

在美国,我们不擅长重复利用这种资源,但在世界上的其他地方,他们可不会浪费这种资源。

Remember Brian Baumgaertel? He's the director of the Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center.

还记得布莱恩·鲍姆盖特尔吗?他是马萨诸塞州“替代化粪池系统测试中心”的主任。

And his group is doing a whole research project on pee-cycling. He says we're thinking about wastewater all wrong.

他的小组正在做一个关于尿循环的研究项目。他说,我们对废水的看法是完全错误的。

Yes, it's got stuff in it that we don't necessarily like because it might make us sick.

没错,它里面含有一些我们不喜欢的东西,可能会让我们生病。

But nitrogen is one of the things that we utilize for fertilizer.

但氮是人们用来做肥料的一种物质。

And that matters because fertilizer production is a climate problem.

这很重要,因为化肥生产是一个气候问题。

Making synthetic nitrogen fertilizer requires so much fossil fuel that its carbon dioxide footprint is comparable to that of the U.K.

制造合成氮肥需要大量的化石燃料,其导致的二氧化碳排放量与英国的排放量相当。

Using recycled urine for fertilizer instead could help curb the demand for the synthetic stuff.

使用回收的尿液作为肥料,有助于减少对合成氮的需求。

So we've got a material that we're sending down into the ground every day that's a resource, and we're wasting (it).

所以说,我们有这样一种物质,却每天都把它排放到地下,它是一种资源,而我们正在浪费它。

And in the past they would have been like, "What are you doing? What are you doing with that?" You know?

过去,会有人说:“你在做什么?你拿它干什么?”

And there are other pros to pee-cycling.

但也有人支持尿液回收。

It's relatively cheap compared with sewers or advanced septic: it costs about $6,000 to install a fancy system like the one Earle and Hilda have.

与下水道或高级化粪池相比,它更便宜:安装厄尔和希尔达这样的高档系统大约需要6000美元。

And if you don't want to sprinkle your tinkle on your flower beds, getting your urine hauled away is pretty cheap.

如果你不想把尿洒在你的花坛上,那把它运走也很便宜。

Or for less than $100 you can get a portable urinal called a Cubie.

或者花不到100美元,就可以买到一款名为Cubie的便携式小便池。

And people could start pee-cycling quickly, without having to wait decades for sewers.

人们立马就可以开始尿液循环,而不必等几十年,下水道建好以后。

You know, I think there's a lot of advantages.

我觉得这么做有很多优点。

I don't know that it's the sort of end solution for the wastewater problem. Maybe it is for some folks.

我并不认为这是废水问题的最终解决方案。也许有些人认为就是。

There are, of course, challenges. Cape Cod doesn't have the infrastructure to recycle everyone's urine yet-and there's the "ick" factor to overcome.

当然,也存在挑战。科德角还没有基础设施来回收每个人的尿液,而且这里面还有“恶心”因素需要克服。

But still, folks are interested. Earle and Hilda host regular open houses to teach people about pee-cycling.

但是,人们仍然很感兴趣。厄尔和希尔达定期举办开放日活动,教人们如何回收尿液。

One day last fall more than a dozen people showed up.

去年秋天有一天,来了十几个人。

Yeah, we're gonna show you how our house is set up in two groups, and then we'll come back out and talk some more.

是的,我们会分成两组向你们展示我们的房子是如何搭建的,然后我们再回来继续讨论。

A group follows Hilda into the bathroom and then downstairs to see the storage tanks.

一群人跟着希尔达走进浴室,然后下楼去看储尿罐。

One guy on the tour, Rob Pacheco of Falmouth, thought it was interesting.

来自法尔茅斯的罗布·帕切科认为这很有趣。

I think that it's something that we need to adopt the idea of, you know, in general. Just not sure of how to install everything.

总的来说,我认为这是我们需要接受的观念。只是不确定要怎么安装那套系统。

Toby and Rich Stomberg were more enthusiastic.

托比和里奇·斯托伯格对此更热情。

They have a house in Eastham, Massachusetts, a town that has the same water problems as the rest of the cape.

他们住在马萨诸塞州的伊斯特姆,这个小镇和好望角的其他地方一样存在水问题。

And it's such an amazing solution. So for us it's just taking the time to get it going in our own home.

这是一个很棒的解决方案。对我们来说,就是花点时间在自己家中也实施起来。

And then if that sort of spreads to our neighbors, well, that would be really nice.

如果它能扩散到邻居们那里,那就太好了。

I point out, too, that we have solar panels on our roof, and we got lots of money back from the state and government that really made it easy for us to do that....

我还指出,我们在屋顶上安装了太阳能电池板,从州政府和政府那里得到了很多钱,这让这件事容易了很多....

And the government is not supporting this.

政府也不支持。

That might change-at least in Falmouth. The town is considering a urine-diversion pilot project for at least 50 homes.

这种情况可能会改变——至少在法尔茅斯是这样。该镇正在考虑对至少50户家庭进行尿液分流试点项目。

If the town decides to move forward with the project, it may be the first program of its kind in the country.

如果该镇决定推进该项目,可能会成为该国首个此类项目。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
comparable ['kɔmpərəbl]

想一想再看

adj. 可比较的,比得上的

联想记忆
utilize ['ju:tilaiz]

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vt. 利用

联想记忆
solve [sɔlv]

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v. 解决,解答

 
adopt [ə'dɔpt]

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v. 采用,收养,接受

联想记忆
overall [əuvə'rɔ:l]

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adj. 全部的,全体的,一切在内的
adv.

 
liquid ['likwid]

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adj. 液体的,液态的
n. 液体

 
solution [sə'lu:ʃən]

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n. 解答,解决办法,溶解,溶液

联想记忆
invasive [in'veisiv]

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adj. 侵略性的;攻击性的

 
institute ['institju:t]

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n. 学会,学院,协会
vt. 创立,开始,制

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storage ['stɔridʒ]

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n. 贮藏,存储,保管,保管费,仓库,[计]存储器

 

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