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(单词翻译)
Countries like Nigeria used to export thousands of tons of recycled plastic waste to China every year.
The wastes would be processed and used in making pipes, carpets and other products.
But the business has had to come to an end.
Days ago, China enacted1 a ban amid its latest environmental protection efforts.
It prohibits imports of recyclable waste including mixed paper, plastic bottles and 24 types of solid waste.
Nigerian recycling experts like Bilkis Abiola said that this presents a chance to help develop their country's recycling industry.
"I think in the medium to the longer term, people see this as an opportunity and they will position themselves and they will start adding value here in Lagos. Instead of me exporting my waste flakes2, for instance, my waste plastics to China, I can turn around and create a bottle-to-bottle recycling plant or a plastic recycling plant here in Nigeria. Because what we do is we take the waste, we ship it to China and we just buy the end product."
Meanwhile, another expert Ola Oresanya believes their country has been capable of handling the problem.
"The technology to process plastic in Africa should be here. We don't really have to export. We don't. All the recyclables that we can gather, we should process them right here in Africa. We were exporting this. We were scavenging, scooping3, packaging and exporting for production in China. Why can't we process here?"
Nigeria generates an estimated 30 million metric tons of waste annually4.
Of this figure, 2.5 million metric tons are plastic waste.
The capital city Lagos on its own accounts for about 300,000 of the total.
So far, some recycling incentives5 have been put into effect in Lagos, but Oresanya suggests the industry is still at its infancy6 and has lots of room for expansion.
"What I think China can do to help Africa grow, and I think what African cities can do is that all the technology that you cannot use in China, bring them here. Let us all start to be recyclers. Let us now use those scraps7. Bring your scraps to Africa, let us process them."
Abiola is also upbeat about the future of the domestic industry.
"Imagine Lagos growing and having more of that, having more industries that turn waste into products and Lagos now can even supply neighboring cities, neighboring countries with the end products. So I think Lagos is a port city, so it is a strategic thing that I think we need to really grab."
The experts are also suggesting that Africa could become a major recycling basin for the rest of the world, so that more jobs can be created, and more new materials can be made.
1 enacted | |
制定(法律),通过(法案)( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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2 flakes | |
小薄片( flake的名词复数 ); (尤指)碎片; 雪花; 古怪的人 | |
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3 scooping | |
n.捞球v.抢先报道( scoop的现在分词 );(敏捷地)抱起;抢先获得;用铲[勺]等挖(洞等) | |
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4 annually | |
adv.一年一次,每年 | |
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5 incentives | |
激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 ); 刺激; 诱因; 动机 | |
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6 infancy | |
n.婴儿期;幼年期;初期 | |
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7 scraps | |
油渣 | |
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