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Playful Gumdrop Bins Help Reduce Sticky Gum Litter And Give It A Second Life
趣味口香糖回收站
Most people have a love-hate relationship with gum. For delicious as it is, the sticky tasteless waste that remains is not just annoying especially when inadvertently stepped upon, but also, harmful to the environment. That's because the primary ingredient in most modern chewing gums is synthetic rubber which is not biodegradable. With an estimated 560,000 tons of gum being chewed each year, this adds a lot of unwanted polymer to our already overwhelmed landfills. Now thanks to Gumdrop Ltd., there may be a solution to this sticky problem.
好多人对口香糖又爱又恨。虽然口香糖嚼起来很棒，嚼剩下的渣却令人生厌，特别是当你无意间踩上的时候。不仅如此，口香糖渣还有害环境，这是因为现在口香糖的主要原料是不可降解的合成胶。据估计，人们一年大概消耗56万吨口香糖，给本就难以处理的垃圾填埋工程添加了不少压力。现在Gumdrop有限公司似乎找到了解决办法。
The U.K. based company has come up with a brilliant idea that enables easy disposal of chewed gum using specialized recycling bins. Passersby can simply dump any unwanted chewing gum into the bright pink gumdrop-like receptacles that have been installed across the city of London.
这个英国公司找到了轻松处理口香糖渣的好方法——运用特殊的回收箱。现在，在伦敦大街小巷都装了这种亮粉色软糖式的回收箱，路人可以把任何口香糖渣轻松投进去。
Once full, they are mailed to Gumdrop headquarters where the gum is recycled to create - yup you guessed it - more receptacles! The company says that the gum waste can be transformed into other useful things like rubber boots and phone cases as well.
填满的回收箱将被送回Gumdrop总部，你能想象出它们被加工成什么了吗？是更多的回收箱！该公司表示，口香糖渣还可以转化为其他可用的东西，比如橡胶鞋或电话箱。
Though the pink bins clearly indicate that they are meant for gum recycling, there is always the risk that people will use them to get rid of all kinds of trash. To ensure that it is just gum that gets recycled, the company has devised a special system that extracts any foreign items that have been mixed in.
虽然粉红色回收箱上明确标注了只用来回收口香糖，也还是有被投入其他垃圾的风险。为了解决这个问题，Gumdrop公司发明了可以筛除其他垃圾的系统。
Anna Bullus, who founded the company in 2009, says she was inspired to create the clever receptacles after observing the sticky mess caused by gum waste on the streets of London. To test if people would be willing to dispose of gum responsibly, she set up two bins inside a men's restroom at Southampton Airport about 80 miles northeast of London. It was extremely successful! Bullus says they had to pick up the full receptacles just five times a year, an endeavor that cost the company $300 USD.
Anna Bullus在2009年创建了该公司。据她讲，她是在伦敦大街上看到这些黏黏的口香糖垃圾后才受启发决定开发这种智能回收站的。为了试验人们是否自愿把口香糖渣投入垃圾桶，她专门在位于距离伦敦80公里东北部的Southampton机场的男卫生间里设置了两个这种回收站。事实证明非常成功! Bullus说他们公司每年只需要取5次被装满的回收站，仅需要花费300美元的成本。
译文属可可英语原创，未经允许，不得转载。
