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| Around the world, most of the 1.4 billion tons of food thrown away each year goes to landfills. As it rots, it pollutes water and soil and releases huge amounts of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases. | 全世界每年丢弃的14亿吨食物中，大部分进了垃圾填埋场。它们的腐烂会污染水和土壤，释放出大量的甲烷——最强效的温室气体之一。 |
| But not in South Korea, which banned food scraps from its landfills almost 20 years ago. Here, the vast majority of it gets turned into animal feed, fertilizer and fuel for heating homes. | 但在韩国却不是这样，该国近20年前就禁止将厨余垃圾送去填埋场。在这里，绝大多数厨余垃圾被转化为动物饲料、肥料和家庭取暖的燃料。 |
| Food waste is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, not only because of the methane but also because the energy and resources that went into its production and transport have been wasted, too. | 厨余垃圾是导致气候变化的最大肇因之一，不仅是因为甲烷，还因为用于生产和运输食物的能源和资源也被浪费了。 |
| The system in South Korea, which keeps about 90 percent of discarded food out of landfills and incinerators, has been studied by governments around the world. Officials from China, Denmark and elsewhere have toured South Korea’s facilities. New York City, which will require all residents to separate their food waste from other trash by next fall, has been observing the Korean system for years, a spokesman for the city’s sanitation department said. | 各国政府都在研究韩国的方法，这里高达九成的废弃食品是通过垃圾填埋和焚化之外的方式处理的。中国、丹麦和其他国家的官员纷纷到韩国参观相关的处理设施。纽约市到明年秋天将要求所有居民把厨余垃圾与其他垃圾分开，该市卫生部门的一位发言人表示，纽约多年来一直在观察韩国的做法。 |
| While a number of cities have comparable programs, few if any other countries do what South Korea does on a national scale. That is because of the cost, said Paul West, a senior scientist with Project Drawdown, a research group that studies ways to reduce carbon emissions. Although individuals and businesses pay a small fee to discard food waste, the program costs South Korea about $600 million a year, according to the country’s Ministry of Environment. | 虽然许多城市都有类似的项目，但很少有其他国家像韩国这样在全国范围内推行这种做法。减排方法研究机构Project Drawdown的资深科学家保罗·韦斯特说，这是因为成本问题。据韩国环境部称，尽管个人和企业会支付少量费用来处理厨余垃圾，但该项目每年仍要花费韩国约6亿美元。 |
| Nonetheless, Mr. West and other experts say it should be emulated. “The South Korea example makes it possible to reduce emissions at a larger scale,” he said. | 尽管如此，韦斯特等专家表示，这个办法应该推广。“韩国的例子使更大规模的减排成为可能，”他说。 |
| South Korea’s culinary tradition tends to result in uneaten food. Small side dishes — sometimes a few, sometimes more than a dozen — accompany most meals. For years, practically all of those leftovers went into the ground. | 韩国的烹饪传统往往带来剩余食物。大多数时候，一顿饭的小配菜少则几样，多则十几样。多年来，几乎所有的剩菜都埋到地下。 |
| But the country’s mountainous terrain limits how many landfills can be built, and how far from residential areas they can be. In 1995, the government introduced mandatory recycling of paper and plastic, but food scraps continued to be buried along with other trash. | 但该国的多山地形限制了垃圾填埋场的数量，而且无法与居民区拉开距离。1995年，政府推行纸张和塑料的强制回收规定，但厨余垃圾继续与其他垃圾一起掩埋。 |
| Political support for changing that was driven by people living near landfills, who complained about the smells, said Kee-Young Yoo, a researcher at the government-run Seoul Institute who has advised cities on handling food waste. Because stews are a staple of Korean cuisine, discarded food here tends to have a high water content, which means greater volume and worse odors. | 政府运营的首尔研究院的研究员柳荣基（音）曾为多座城市提供厨余垃圾处理方面的建议，他说，生活在垃圾填埋场附近的居民对气味的抱怨从政治上推动了改变的发生。由于韩国料理以炖煮为主，所以厨余垃圾往往带有汤汤水水，这意味着体积更大，气味更重。 |
| “When all of that went to waste, it emitted a terrible stench,” Mr. Yoo said. | 柳荣基说，“扔掉的厨余垃圾会发出可怕的臭味。” |
| Since 2005, it’s been illegal to send food waste to landfills. Local governments have built hundreds of facilities for processing it. Consumers, restaurant owners, truck drivers and others are part of the network that gets it collected and turned into something useful. | 自2005年以来，在韩国将厨余垃圾送到填埋场属于违法行为。地方政府建立了数百个处理设施。消费者、餐馆老板、卡车司机和其他人都是这个网络的一部分，该网络将厨余垃圾收集起来，转化为有用的东西。 |
| At Jongno Stew Village, a popular lunch spot in the Dobong district of northern Seoul, pollock stew and kimchi jjigae are the best sellers. But no matter the order, Lee Hae-yeon, the owner, serves small side dishes of kimchi, tofu, boiled bean sprouts and marinated perilla leaves. | 在首尔北边道峰区颇受欢迎的午餐食肆钟路炖村，鱼干汤泡饭和泡菜锅最受欢迎。无论点什么菜，店主李熹延（音）都会端上各种小菜，包括泡菜、豆腐、煮豆芽和腌紫苏叶。 |
| Customers can help themselves to more, and “people are going to take more than they’re going to eat,” Mr. Lee said. “Koreans like to err on the side of abundance when it comes to food.” | 顾客还有需要的话可以自取，“人们拿的会比他们能吃下的多，”他说。“在食物方面，韩国人喜欢摆满一大桌的感觉。” |
| Mr. Lee pays a price for that: about 2,800 won, a little over $2, for every 20 liters of food he throws out. All day, leftovers go into a bucket in the kitchen, and at closing time Mr. Lee empties it into a designated bin outside. On the lid, he attaches a sticker purchased from the district — evidence that he’s paid for the disposal. | 李先生是要为此付出代价的：每20升厨余大约2800韩元，约合人民币15元。剩菜剩饭会倒进厨房的桶里，打烊后再倾倒到外面一个指定的垃圾桶。他会在桶盖上贴一张从区政府购买的贴纸——证明他已经支付了垃圾清运费。 |
| In the morning, companies hired by the district empty those bins. Park Myung-joo and his team start rolling through the streets at 5 a.m., tearing the stickers off the bins and dumping the contents into their truck’s tank. | 早上，区政府雇用的公司将这些垃圾桶清空。朴明珠和他的团队从凌晨5点开始在街道上穿梭，撕掉垃圾箱上的贴纸，将里面的东西倒进卡车的翻斗里。 |
| Around 11 a.m., they get to Dobong’s processing facility, where they unload the sludgy mess. | 上午11点左右，他们到达道峰的处理厂，在那里卸下烂泥般的垃圾。 |
| Debris — bones, seeds, shells — is picked out by hand. (Dobong’s plant is one of the last in the nation where this step isn’t automated.) A conveyor belt carries the waste into a grinder, which reduces it to small pieces. Anything that isn’t easily shredded, like plastic bags, is filtered out and incinerated. | 残渣——骨头、种子、壳类——是手工捡出来的。（道峰的工厂是该国最后几家未将这一步自动化的工厂之一。）传送带将废物送入研磨机粉碎成小块。任何不容易切碎的东西，比如塑料袋，都会被过滤掉并焚烧。 |
| Then the waste is baked and dehydrated. The moisture goes into pipes leading to a water treatment plant, where some of it is used to produce biogas. The rest is purified and discharged into a nearby stream. | 然后将废物烘烤和脱水。水分进入管道通往水处理车间，其中一些被用来生产沼气。其余的被净化并排放到附近的溪流中。 |
| What’s left of the waste at the processing plant, four hours after Mr. Park’s team dropped it off, is ground into the final product: a dry, brown powder that smells like dirt. It’s a feed supplement for chickens and ducks, rich in protein and fiber, said Sim Yoon-sik, the facility’s manager, and given away to any farm that wants it. | 朴明珠的团队送来垃圾四小时后，加工厂剩下的废物被研磨成最终产品：一种干燥的棕色粉末，闻起来像泥土。该设施的经理沈允植说，它可以作为鸡和鸭的饲料补充剂，富含蛋白质和纤维，并将其送给任何愿意接收的农场。 |
| Inside the plant, the strong odors cling to fabric and hair. But outside, they are barely noticeable. Pipes run through the building, purifying the air via a chemical process before the exhaust system expels it. | 在工厂内，强烈的气味附着在织物和头发上。但在外面几乎闻不到。建筑内的管道会用化学方法对气体进行净化，然后再由排气装置排出。 |
| Other plants work differently. At the biogas facility in Goyang, a Seoul suburb, the food waste — nearly 70,000 tons annually — undergoes anaerobic digestion. It sits in large tanks for up to 35 days while bacteria does its work, breaking the organic matter down and creating biogas, consisting mainly of methane and carbon dioxide. | 其他处理厂有不同的工作方式。在首尔郊区高阳市的沼气设施中，食物垃圾——每年近7万吨——进行厌氧消化。将垃圾放置在大容器中长达35天，让细菌发挥作用，分解有机物并产生主要由甲烷和二氧化碳组成的沼气。 |
| The biogas is sold to a local utility, which says it’s used to heat 3,000 homes in Goyang. What solid matter remains is mixed with wood chips to create fertilizer, which is given away. | 沼气被卖给了当地一家公用事业公司，据称这些沼气用于为高阳市的3000户家庭供暖。剩下的固体物质与木屑混合制成肥料，然后分发出去。 |
| Every ton of food waste that rots in a landfill emits greenhouse gases equivalent to 800 pounds of carbon dioxide, researchers have found. Turning it into biogas cuts that in half, said Lee Chang-gee, an engineer at the Goyang plant. | 研究人员发现，在垃圾填埋场腐烂的每一吨食物垃圾都会排放相当于800磅二氧化碳的温室气体。高阳处理厂的工程师李昌基说，转化为沼气可以将排放减半。 |
| Critics note that for all its benefits, South Korea’s program hasn’t attained one of its goals: getting people to throw away less food. The amount of discarded food nationwide has stayed more or less steady over the years, according to data from the Ministry of Environment. | 批评人士指出，尽管韩国的计划带来了种种好处，但它并未实现其目标之一：让人们少浪费食物。根据环境部的数据，多年来，全国丢弃的食物量基本没变。 |
| The system has had other flaws. There have been scattered complaints: In Deogyang, a district of Goyang, residents of one village said the odor from a processing facility was once so bad that they couldn’t leave their windows open. That plant has been inactive since 2018 because of neighbors’ protests. | 该系统还有其他缺陷。也有断断续续的抱怨声：高阳市德阳区一个村庄的居民说，一家加工厂的气味曾经非常难闻，以至于他们无法开着窗户。由于邻居的抗议，该工厂自2018年以来一直处于停工状态。 |
| “When the plant shut down, all the problems disappeared,” said a Deogyang resident, Mo Sung Yun, 68. | “工厂关闭后，所有问题都消失了，”68岁的德阳居民莫松云说。 |
| But most of the plants nationwide — unlike the landfills they are essentially replacing — have drawn few if any serious complaints from neighbors. Government officials say steadily improving technology has led to cleaner and more efficient operations. | 但全国范围内的大多数工厂——与它们实际上正在取代的垃圾填埋场不同——几乎没有引起邻居的严重投诉。政府官员表示，稳步改进技术已促成更清洁、更高效的运营。 |
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