垃圾不是“垃圾”：重新认识你身边的“被遗忘物” / Trash is Not "Trash": Rediscovering the "Forgotten Items" Around You

你上周扔的奶茶杯，现在可能还在某个填埋场的土里躺着——别笑，这不是段子，是联合国环境规划署（UNEP）2023年发布的报告里写实的数据：一个普通的PET塑料奶茶杯，完全降解需要450年，也就是从明朝永乐皇帝迁都北京（1421年）到现在，刚好过去603年，要是当年有人扔了个塑料杯在紫禁城的护城河里，现在挖出来还能认出那是奶茶杯。如果你觉得这个例子太远，咱们换个近的：上周你拆的3个快递纸盒，要是被扔在潮湿的户外，1个月就能烂成纸浆，但要是被埋在没有氧气的填埋场里，可能要10年才能分解；你啃完的苹果核，埋进土里2周就能变成肥料，但要是被扔进塑料垃圾袋里和其他垃圾混在一起，可能1年都烂不完。

On the other side of the world, the bubble tea cup you threw away last week might still be lying in the soil of a landfill — don’t laugh, this is not a joke, but a factual record from the 2023 report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): an ordinary PET plastic bubble tea cup takes 450 years to fully decompose, which is exactly 603 years from the time Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Beijing (1421) to now; if someone had thrown a plastic cup into the moat of the Forbidden City back then, you could still recognize it as a bubble tea cup if you dig it out today. If you think this example is too far-fetched, let’s make it closer: the 3 express cardboard boxes you unpacked last week will rot into pulp in just one month if left in a damp outdoor area, but if they are buried in an oxygen-free landfill, they may take 10 years to break down; the apple core you just ate will turn into fertilizer in two weeks if buried in soil, but if it is thrown into a plastic garbage bag and mixed with other waste, it may not rot for a whole year.

`[intro]`

---

我们从小被灌输的“垃圾观”其实特别简单：没用的东西就是垃圾，扔了就和自己没关系了。但你有没有想过，你眼里的“垃圾”，在别人眼里可能是宝贝？你喝完的奶茶杯，洗干净就是笔筒、小笔刷筒；你拆完的快递盒，折一折就是收纳盒、书架，甚至能改成小房子当玩具；你用了一半的笔记本，撕掉写过的页，剩下的空白页能当草稿本用到毕业，比你买新的草稿本划算多了。

We’ve been taught a very simple “garbage view” since childhood: useless things are garbage, and once thrown away, they have nothing to do with you. But have you ever thought that the “garbage” in your eyes might be a treasure in someone else’s eyes? The bubble tea cup you just finished drinking, if washed clean, can be a pen holder or a small brush holder; the express box you just unpacked, if folded, can be a storage box, a bookshelf, or even transformed into a small house as a toy; the half-used notebook, if you tear off the written pages, the remaining blank pages can be used as draft paper until you graduate, which is much more cost-effective than buying new draft paper.

`[core-concept]`

这就是本章要讲的核心概念：垃圾不是“垃圾”，是放错地方的资源。这个观点听起来像鸡汤，但它是全球零废弃运动的核心基础，也是我们这整本书要讲的所有方法的底层逻辑。你可能会问：“那为什么我扔的东西最后都变成填埋场的垃圾了？”很简单：你扔的时候，默认它“没用了”，但你没有给它找到“有用”的新位置。

This is the core concept we’re going to talk about in this chapter: Trash is not “trash”, it is a resource placed in the wrong place. This idea sounds like chicken soup for the soul, but it is the core foundation of the global zero-waste movement, and also the underlying logic of all the methods we will talk about in this whole book. You may ask: “Then why do the things I throw away all end up as landfill garbage in the end?” It’s very simple: when you throw it away, you default to thinking it’s “useless”, but you didn’t find it a new “useful” position.

`[core-concept]`

---

为了让你更直观地理解“放错地方的资源”是什么意思，咱们先来看两个你绝对遇到过的真实案例。

To help you understand what “a resource placed in the wrong place” means more intuitively, let’s look at two real cases that you have definitely encountered.

`[case-section]`

案例1：你拆的快递盒，本来可以当猫窝 / Case 1: The Express Box You Unpacked Could Have Been a Cat House

2022年，浙江杭州某小学的班主任在班级群里发起了一个挑战：“咱们这学期攒的快递盒，不准扔，要改造成有用的东西。”全班42个同学，一个学期攒了317个快递盒：有的同学把盒子剪了，粘上彩色卡纸，做成了放文具的收纳盒，还贴上了自己喜欢的动漫贴纸；有的同学把大盒子拼起来，做了个两层的小书架，放课外书刚好；还有的同学把中等大小的盒子掏了个洞，铺上旧毛巾，做成了猫窝，送给学校门口的流浪猫住。最后剩下的干净纸盒，都被卖给了废品回收站，换了212块钱，给班级买了10盆多肉植物，摆在窗台上。

In 2022, a homeroom teacher of a primary school in Hangzhou, Zhejiang launched a challenge in the class group chat: “The cardboard boxes we collect this semester are not allowed to be thrown away, they must be transformed into something useful.” All 42 students in the class collected 317 cardboard boxes over one semester: some students cut the boxes, glued on colored cardstock, and made storage boxes for stationery, also sticking their favorite anime stickers on them; some students put large boxes together to make a two-tier small bookshelf, which is just right for placing extracurricular books; and some students cut a hole in a medium-sized box, laid an old towel on it, and made a cat house, which was given to the stray cats living at the school gate. In the end, the remaining clean cardboard boxes were sold to a recycling station, and 212 yuan was exchanged, which was used to buy 10 pots of succulents for the class, placed on the windowsill.

你看，本来要被当成垃圾扔掉的快递盒，最后变成了收纳盒、书架、猫窝、班级的绿植，这就是“放错地方的资源”：你默认它“只能扔”，但它其实有无数种有用的可能。要是这317个盒子都被扔进垃圾桶，最后只能被填埋或者焚烧，既浪费了资源，还会产生二氧化碳，加剧气候变化。

You see, the cardboard boxes that were originally going to be thrown away as garbage finally became storage boxes, bookshelves, cat houses, and the class’s green plants. This is exactly “a resource placed in the wrong place”: you default to thinking it “can only be thrown away”, but it actually has countless useful possibilities. If all 317 boxes were thrown into the trash can, they could only be landfilled or incinerated in the end, which not only wastes resources but also produces carbon dioxide and exacerbates climate change.

`[case1]`

案例2：你用废的中性笔，可能变成了你身上的T恤 / Case 2: The Used Ballpoint Pen You Threw Away May Have Become the T-shirt You Wear

很多同学用完中性笔就把笔壳扔了，觉得塑料壳没用。但你不知道的是，中性笔的笔壳大多是PET塑料（就是做塑料瓶的同一种材料），是可回收物。如果你把用完的笔攒够一塑料袋（大概50支），卖给废品回收站，能换5块钱，刚好买两根冰棒。

Many students throw away the plastic shell of a ballpoint pen as soon as the ink runs out, thinking the plastic shell is useless. But you may not know that the shell of a ballpoint pen is mostly PET plastic (the same material as plastic bottles), which is recyclable. If you save a plastic bag full of used pens (about 50), and sell them to a recycling station, you can get 5 yuan, which is just enough to buy two ice pops.

就算你不攒着卖，只要把笔壳扔进可回收箱，它也会被送到回收工厂，清洗、破碎、熔融之后，变成塑料颗粒，这些颗粒可以做成新的笔壳、塑料收纳盒，甚至可以做成长城的塑料砖，或者你身上穿的聚酯纤维T恤的原材料。一个塑料瓶回收之后，最高可以变成8件新的聚酯纤维衣服。

Even if you don’t save them to sell, as long as you throw the pen shell into the recyclable bin, it will be sent to a recycling factory, washed, broken, melted, and turned into plastic pellets. These pellets can be made into new pen shells, plastic storage boxes, or even the plastic bricks of the Great Wall, or the raw material of the polyester T-shirt you are wearing. After recycling, one plastic bottle can be turned into up to 8 new polyester clothes.

但如果你把笔壳扔进其他垃圾，最后被填埋，它要450年才能降解，和塑料奶茶杯一样。要是被风吹到河里、海里，就会变成微塑料，被鱼吃掉，最后通过海鲜回到你的餐桌上。

But if you throw the pen shell into other waste and it ends up in a landfill, it will take 450 years to decompose, just like a plastic bubble tea cup. If it is blown into rivers or the sea by the wind, it will become microplastic, be eaten by fish, and finally return to your dining table through seafood.

`[case2]`

---

现在你已经知道了“垃圾是放错地方的资源”是什么意思，接下来咱们要科普另一个重要知识点：垃圾的降解周期。很多同学觉得“垃圾

很多同学觉得“垃圾”扔了就彻底消失了，反正有环卫车拉走，填埋场那么大，埋进去就再也不用管了。但真相是：你扔的每一件垃圾，都在地球上进行一场长达几年、几百年甚至几万年的“旅行”，而这场旅行的终点，要么是变成有用的资源，要么是变成永远缠着地球的“负担”。

Most students think that “garbage” disappears completely once thrown away. After all, there are sanitation trucks to take it away, and landfills are so big that once it’s buried, you never have to worry about it again. But the truth is: every piece of garbage you throw away is taking a years-long, even tens of thousands of years long “trip” on Earth, and the end of this trip is either turning into a useful resource, or becoming a burden that will forever cling to the planet.

---

什么是垃圾降解？/ What Is Garbage Decomposition?

你可能会问：“什么叫降解？垃圾烂掉就是降解吗？”没错，咱们先搞懂这个基础概念：降解就是有机物被微生物（比如细菌、真菌）分解，变回水、二氧化碳、腐殖质这些自然里本来就有的物质的过程。你啃完的苹果核、吃剩的米饭，都是有机物，土壤里的微生物爱吃这些，所以很快就能把它们“消化”掉，变成肥料给植物当养分，这个过程就是完美的降解。

You may ask: “What is decomposition? Is rotting garbage decomposition?” Exactly, let’s first understand this basic concept: **Decomposition is the process by which organic matter (such as bacteria and fungi) is broken down into substances that already exi