雙語閱讀：零廢行動！墨爾本一學校取消垃圾桶

Melbourne Girls’ College is getting rid of all its bins and asking students to take their rubbish home in a bold bid to encourage them to move towards zero waste.

墨爾本女子學院將拆除校園內所有垃圾桶，並要求學生把垃圾帶回家，這一大膽的舉措旨在鼓勵師生儘量做到“零垃圾”。

Starting next Monday, the Richmond college will over five weeks phase out receptacles in classrooms and the yard, leaving 1400 students and 140 staff to find their own home for chip packets and juice boxes.

從下週一開始，這所位於墨爾本里士滿的學校將在5周內拆除教室和校園內的垃圾桶，全校1400名學生和140名教職員工要把薯片袋和果汁盒帶回家。

Even the school’s 20 recycling bins will be removed, because the collapse of SKM Recycling means the college's plastic and glass recycling is now sent to landfill. Paper can still be recycled via the school, because recycling for that is still operating.

連學校的20個回收垃圾箱也將被拆除，因爲垃圾回收企業SKM的破產意味着學校的塑料和玻璃回收物如今被送往垃圾填埋場。紙張仍然可以由學校回收，因爲紙張回收系統仍在運行中。

As part of the shift, volunteer students will conduct daily non-compulsory food inspections in which children bringing ‘‘zero waste’’ lunch boxes will be rewarded.

同時，學生志願者每天會進行非強制性午餐飯盒檢查，攜帶“零廢”飯盒的學生將受到獎勵。

Students using only reusable packaging will receive a token that will go into a draw to win prizes such as keep cups.

只使用可重複利用包裝盒的學生將收到一張禮券，憑此可參與抽獎，並贏得諸如keepcup咖啡杯等之類的獎品。

Yes, the rubbish that students take home may still go to landfill via their home bins, but teacher Paula McIntosh says the new policy will help persuade families to buy fewer packaged items and reuse containers.

是的，學生帶回家的垃圾可能仍然會被扔進家庭垃圾箱，最後被填埋，但學校老師保拉·麥金託什表示，新政策將有助於說服家庭少買包裝好的物品，並重復使用容器。

She said the campaigning of Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg had inspired the school, showing that the acts of one person "can lead to enormous change".

她說，瑞典青少年氣候活動家格里塔·騰伯格的活動激勵了學校，該活動表明一個人的行爲“可以導致巨大的變化”。

Student environment leader Lucy Skelton, 17, says most issues around carrying rubbish home, such as smell and mess, can be solved.

17歲的學生環保活動負責人露西·斯凱爾頓說，大多數關於把垃圾帶回家的問題都可以解決，比如氣味和髒亂。

Uneaten tuna in a tin, for example, can go into the school’s compost bin and the tin can be washed before it’s taken home.

例如，未食用的罐頭裝金槍魚可以放進學校的堆肥箱，罐頭盒在被帶回家之前可以清洗乾淨。

Ms McIntosh acknowledges that some parents may not have the time or means to avoid food in single-use packaging, ‘‘but it’s trying to get as many people as we can to avoid it’’.

麥金託什女士承認，有些家長可能沒有時間或辦法避免購買一次性包裝的食品，“但我們正試圖讓儘可能多的人避免食用這種食品”。

She says she got the no-bins idea from national park guidelines, which ask visitors to take rubbish home with them.

她說，她是從國家公園指南中得到拆除垃圾箱的靈感的，指南要求遊客把垃圾帶回家。

School sustainability co-ordinator Andrew Vance says his marine biology students were horrified when they used a microscope to discover micro plastics in Port Phillip Bay water.

學校可持續發展協調員安德魯·萬斯說，他海洋生物學專業的學生們用顯微鏡在菲利浦港灣水域發現塑料微粒時，他們都嚇壞了。

"It was shocking," Mr Vance says. "We felt, 'Oh my gosh, what can we do about this problem?' "

萬斯先生說：“這太讓人吃驚了。我們覺得，‘哦，天哪，我們能爲此做些什麼？’”

"And if you expose students to these problems, if you then don’t give them an opportunity to try and be involved in the solution, that’s when it leads to depression and anxiety and ecological grief."

“如果你讓學生們接觸這些問題，如果你不給他們一個嘗試參與解決問題的機會，那就會導致抑鬱、焦慮和爲生態而悲傷。”

Says principal Karen Money: "We talk a lot, as educators, about the wicked problems the world faces, and if we don’t start putting some actions behind that rhetoric, then it’s just empty."

校長凱倫·莫尼說：“作爲教育者，我們談論了很多關於這個世界面臨的邪惡問題，如果我們不開始對這些問題採取一些行動，那就是空談。”