Passage Three

The wandering ship was a dramatic symbol for a problem plaguing our age. In 1987, the ship, loaded with thousands of tons of New York garbage, spent weeks wandering from one port to another in search of a dump before finally returning home, mission unaccomplished. New York, like other communities throughout the world is running out of space to put its trash. As throwaway societies, the US and other industrialized countries expect their garbage to be picked up by trucks that magically transported the refuse to some out-of-sight incinerator(焚化炉) or dump. But in the developing counties of Asia, Africa and Latin America, thousands of tons of trash collected daily are thrown into open dumps, where it feeds huge populations of rats that swarm through poor neighborhoods. "The world is literally swimming in garbage," says a scientist, "Communities worldwide are being forced to confront the problem." Green Peace spokesman Bryan Bence adds, "The cr in garbage stems in part from the fact that we’ve ignored long-term disposal problem in favor of cheap quick fixes." The garbage glut (过选剩) has inspired many communities in the U.S., Japan and Western Europe to start recycling programs. Once considered a curious counter culture activity recycling has moved firmly into the mainstream. Recycling involves separating usable products from trash, processing them so they can be substituted for more expensive raw materials and returning them to the marketplace as parts of new products. Many countries now have mandatory recycling programs, and others plan to follow the trend soon. Most notably, Japan has stood out as a model and leader of the waste management trend, recycling an estimated 65 percent of its waste. "That’s what we should do, to the garbage cr", says David Antonioli, a staff member with the New York Public Interest Research Corp. "The earth is not a dump!"

According to Green Peace spokesman Bryan Bence, the cr in garbage stem in part from ______