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| HOUKI, Japan — The restorative waters that flow into the public baths in this town near the coast of western Japan originate from hot springs more than two-thirds of a mile below ground. At the surface, before the water bubbles out of the spouts, it is further heated to 107 degrees Fahrenheit — an ideal temperature for cleansing and soaking weary muscles. |
| 日本伯耆——在这个靠近日本西部海岸的小镇，令人疲劳顿消的温泉水从约1000米深的地下涌出，流入公共浴池。在涌出之前，水还会被进一步加热到41摄氏度——用于洁净和浸泡疲劳肌肉的理想温度。 |
| But unbeknown to most bathers, the boiler heating the water runs on a fuel with the uncleanliest of origins: pellets recycled from soiled adult diapers. |
| 然而大多来洗浴的客人不知道的是，烧水的锅炉所使用的燃料源自极其污秽的东西：回收用过的成人尿布再制而成的小球。 |
| In rapidly aging Japan, more diapers are used by older, incontinent people than by babies. As the country groans under the weight of ever-rising mountains of this waste, the town of Houki has become a pioneer in trying to reduce it. By recycling the diapers, which represent about a tenth of the town’s trash, it has diverted garbage that would otherwise be dumped in incinerators and add emissions to the atmosphere. |
| 在迅速老龄化的日本，大小便失禁的老年人使用的尿布数量要多过婴儿。由此产生的废物堆积如山，令这个国家十分头疼，于是小镇伯耆率先开始寻找消化这些废物的办法。尿布占了全镇垃圾的十分之一，通过对其进行再利用，他们就不用再把这些垃圾扔进焚化炉，增加大气排放了。 |
| With many other nations facing a similar demographic implosion, adult diaper waste is a stealthy challenge that looms alongside labor shortages in nursing homes and insufficiently funded pension systems. |
| 随着许多国家面临类似的人口急剧下降问题，成人尿布垃圾已经成为一项不易察觉的挑战，与养老院劳动力短缺和退休金系统资金不足等问题一同隐现。 |
| “When you think about it, it is a difficult and big problem,” said Kosuke Kawai, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies. “Japan and other developed countries will face similar problems in the future.” |
| “仔细想想这可是个很困难的大问题，”日本国立环境研究所高级研究员河井纮辅说。“日本和其他发达国家在未来都将面临类似的问题。” |
| In Houki, a town of just over 10,500 people in Tottori Prefecture, officials were worried about the fast-growing diaper waste and looking at the costs to upgrade an outdated incinerator. They decided to convert one of the town’s two incinerators into the diaper recycling plant and produce fuel that would help reduce natural gas heating costs at the public bathhouse as well. |
| 在伯耆这个人口只有1.05万人的鸟取县小镇，迅速增加的尿布垃圾以及升级老旧的焚化炉所需的成本让官员们忧心忡忡。他们决定将镇上的两座垃圾焚烧站之一改成尿布回收厂，用于生产燃料，顺便还有助于降低公共浴室的天然气加热成本。 |
| At the baths, there is nothing advertising the provenance of the boiler fuel. Satomi Shirahase, 45, who was visiting with her husband from Kyoto, was unperturbed when she learned of the source of the heat. |
| 浴室不会宣传锅炉的燃料从哪里来。45岁的京都人白波濑里美（音）和丈夫来这里玩，得知燃料来源后仍泰然自若。 |
| The recycling effort “sounds pretty good to me,” she said in the dressing room after hiking on nearby Mount Daisen, which strongly resembles the more renowned Mount Fuji. “I am not creeped out. It was good water.” |
| 这样的再利用“听上去挺好的”，刚爬完大山（大山是附近一座跟著名的富士山外形相似的山）的她在更衣室里说。“我没有被吓到。水挺好的。” |
| The diaper challenge is especially great in Japan, where more than 80 percent of the country’s waste goes to incinerators — higher than in any other wealthy nation — despite a near obsession with sorting trash. While most other sources of waste are declining in volume as the Japanese population shrinks, incontinence products for seniors are growing by the ton. |
| 尿布带来的挑战在日本格外严峻，虽然对垃圾分类执着到了近乎着迷的地步，但该国80%以上的垃圾是焚烧处理的——这个比例是富裕国家中最高的。随着人口的减少，其他来源的垃圾数量都在下降，但老年人的失禁类产品却在数以吨为单位增加。 |
| The amount of adult diapers entering the waste stream in Japan has increased by nearly 13 percent, to almost 1.5 million tons annually, in the last five years, according to data from the environment ministry. It is projected to grow a further 23 percent by 2030, when those 65 and older will represent close to a third of the population. |
| 据日本环境省数据，过去五年里，进入垃圾处理系统的成人尿布增加了近13%，达到每年将近150万吨。预计2030年以前还会再增长23%，届时65岁及以上的人将占据全国人口的近三分之一。 |
| Because diapers contain so much cotton pulp and plastic, and swell to four times their original weight after soiling, they require much more fuel to burn than other sources of waste. That leads to costly waste management bills for local municipalities and high volumes of damaging carbon emissions. |
| 尿布中含有大量棉浆和塑料，沾污后体积会膨胀至原来的四倍，因此在焚烧时需要消耗比其他废物源多许多的燃料。这就导致地方市镇要承担巨额的垃圾管理开支，并且会有大量有害的碳排放。 |
| And unlike with other products, such as single-use plastics, the use of diapers cannot be restricted without compromising sanitation and health care. |
| 与限制使用一次性塑料等其他产品不同，限制使用尿布必定会影响卫生和保健。 |
| “We can easily eliminate straws and umbrellas on top of cocktails,” said Kremena M. Ionkova, a senior urban development specialist at the World Bank. “But we can’t eliminate diapers.” |
| “要取消鸡尾酒上的小吸管和小雨伞（等小饰物）很容易，”世界银行高级城市发展专家克雷梅纳·扬科娃说。“但我们不能不用尿布。” |
| Acknowledging the growing problem, Japan’s environment ministry convened a working group last year to discuss alternatives to incineration for diapers. A handful of other municipalities are following Houki and turning the diapers into fuel pellets, while some are experimenting with converting them into material that can be mixed with cement for construction or road paving. |
| 认识到这一日益严重的问题后，日本环境省于去年召集了一个工作组，讨论焚烧尿布的替代方案。其他一些城市也在效仿伯耆，将尿布变成燃料颗粒，还有一些城市正在试验将其转化为可与水泥混合用于建筑或铺路的材料。 |
| Unicharm, one of Japan’s largest diaper manufacturers, has built a pilot plant in Kagoshima, in southern Japan, where it is recycling diapers back into more diapers. |
| 尤妮佳是日本最大的纸尿裤制造商之一，该品牌在日本南部的鹿儿岛建立了一个试点工厂，将纸尿裤回收，用于制作更多的纸尿裤。 |
| One of the biggest challenges for recycling is that it requires caregivers to separate the soiled diapers from all other waste. Less than 10 percent of municipalities require households to separate diapers from general garbage, said Hayato Ishii, an official in the recycling promotion division of the environment ministry. |
| 回收利用的最大挑战之一是需要护理人员将脏尿布与所有其他垃圾分开。环境省环境再生和资源循环局官员石井隼人（音）说，只有不到10%的城市要求家庭将尿布与一般垃圾分开。 |
| In Houki, individual households do not sort out diapers, but at six nursing homes, aides dispose of the diapers in special odor-cutting bags that are hauled to the recycling plant every weekday. |
| 在伯耆，居民不会把尿布单独分类，但在六家疗养院，助手会将尿布装在隔绝气味的特殊密封袋中，这些袋子在每个工作日被运到回收厂。 |
| At the Daisen Rehabilitation Hospital, where 8 out of 10 of the approximately 200 patients require disposable diapers, residents produce about 400 pounds of such waste a day. |
| 在大山康复医院大约200名患者中，80%的人需要用一次性尿布，住院患者每天产生约367斤此类垃圾。 |
| On a recent afternoon, Tatsushi Sakata, 33, one of two workers at the diaper recycling plant, collected 35 hefty bags — each containing 30 dirty diapers and all used within the previous 24 hours — from a cinder-block storage space behind the facility and tossed them onto the bed of a Toyota pickup truck. |
| 33岁的坂田立志（音）是尿布回收厂的两名工人之一，最近的一个下午，他从康复医院后面的空心砖仓库收集了35个沉重的袋子——每个袋子里有30个脏尿布，都是在过去24小时内用过的。他把它们扔到一辆丰田皮卡车的后箱上。 |
| Mr. Sakata usually gathers close to a ton of the bags on his daily rounds. At the recycling plant, he and his co-worker, dressed in Tyvek body suits, rubber boots and helmets, dump the diapers into a vat the size of a small trailer. They are sterilized and fermented for 24 hours in 350-degree heat, which cuts their volume to a third of their soiled weight. The process converts the diapers into a fluff that is processed through another machine and turned into two-inch-long gray pellets. |
| 坂田在他的日常巡视中通常会收集近一吨重的袋子。在回收厂，他和他的同事穿着特卫强防护服、橡胶靴和头盔，将尿布倒入一个小拖车大小的桶中。它们在350度的高温下经过24小时的消毒和发酵，体积会减少到脏尿布重量的三分之一。该过程将尿布转化为绒毛，通过另一台机器加工成约五厘米长的灰色颗粒。 |
| The operations slightly evoke the factory scenes from “Soylent Green,” the 1973 dystopian thriller in which nutrition wafers are made from human remains. Despite ceramic and charcoal filters designed to remove foul odors, the machinery emitted a faint yeasty, toasted smell as pellets rained down from a bright orange chute into a large plastic box. |
| 这些操作有点让人想起《超世纪谍杀案》(Soylent Green)中的工厂场景，在这部1973年的反乌托邦惊悚片中，营养脆片是用人体遗骸制成的。即便有用于去除异味的陶瓷和木炭过滤器，但当颗粒通过亮橙色的斜槽落入一个大塑料箱时，机器还是散发出淡淡的酵母和焦糊味。 |
| “At the beginning, I did think it was a little creepy because we were dealing with excrement,” said Mr. Sakata, who has worked for 10 years at the plant. “Our purpose is to turn unmanageable garbage into something manageable.” |
| “因为我们处理的是排泄物，一开始，我确实觉得这有点诡异，”在工厂工作了10年的坂田说。“我们的目的是将无法处理的垃圾变成可控的东西。” |
| Tamotsu Moriyasu, the mayor of Houki, said there was no money to be made in the recycling operation, although it did save fuel costs at the incineration plant and reduce transportation costs. He said visitors wanting to learn about the process had come from all over Japan as well as from Indonesia and Tahiti. |
| 伯耆市长森安保表示，回收操作并不赚钱，但它确实节省了焚烧厂的燃料成本并降低了运输成本。他说，来自日本各地以及印度尼西亚和塔希提岛的人造访此地，想要了解这个过程。 |
| At the public bathhouse, an operator dumps the pellets into a large funnel connected by wide plastic tubing to a biomass boiler. The pellets are burned to generate the extreme heat needed to warm up the bathing water. Although the process produces carbon emissions, the pellets are less polluting than either coal or the petroleum gas previously used in the boiler, according to government calculations. |
| 在公共浴室，操作员将颗粒倒入一个大漏斗中，宽塑料管将漏斗连接到生物质锅炉。颗粒被燃烧以产生加热浴池水所需的极高温度。根据政府的计算，虽然该过程会产生碳排放，但这些颗粒比烧煤或石油气产生的污染要少。 |
| “When I first heard about it, I thought, ‘hmm,’” said Tatsuya Sakagami, 68, a retired city official who occasionally uses the baths. “But adult diapers are just items used by humans.” |
| 68岁的退休市政官员坂上达也（音）偶尔会使用这个澡堂。“当我第一次听说这件事时，我想，‘呃……’”他说。“但成人纸尿裤只不过是人类使用的物品。” |
| “In the past, people would fertilize vegetables with human waste,” he added on a recent afternoon in the bathhouse’s parking lot. Converting soiled diapers into fuel is not dissimilar, he said. “I think it is a good idea because it is ecologically better.” |
| “过去，人们会用人类排泄物给蔬菜施肥，”最近的一个下午，他在澡堂的停车场说道。将脏尿布转化为燃料也没什么不同，他说，“我认为这是一个好主意，因为它对生态更好。” |
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