VOA慢速英语听力：为了减少食物浪费，瑞士尝试使用公共冰箱 To Cut Food Waste, Switzerland Tries Public Refrigerators

VOA慢速英语听力：为了减少食物浪费，瑞士尝试使用公共冰箱 To Cut Food Waste, Switzerland Tries Public Refrigerators.

A nonprofit group in Geneva, Switzerland is making refrigerators available so restaurant owners and cooks can make food available to the public before it goes bad.

瑞士日内瓦的一家非营利组织正在提供冰箱，让餐馆老板和厨师能够在食物变坏之前将其提供给公众。

The refrigerators are being placed along streets for anyone to use. The project is part of a continuing effort by people in Switzerland and other European countries to cut down on food waste.

这些冰箱被放置在街道上供任何人使用。这个项目是瑞士和其他欧洲国家的人们为减少食物浪费所进行的持续努力的一部分。

The nonprofit Free-Go has put refrigerators and food storage centers in Geneva so people can get fruit, vegetables, breads and other foods at no cost. Free-Go is a smart play on the word “frigo,” which is an informal French word for refrigerator.

这家名为Free-Go的非营利组织在日内瓦放置了冰箱和食品储藏中心，让人们可以免费获得水果、蔬菜、面包和其他食品。Free-Go是“frigo”的巧妙变音，这是法语中非正式的冰箱一词。

The program costs about $40,000 to run each year. It receives support from private groups and the city government. Free-Go launched a year ago with a single refrigerator outside a community center in western Geneva. There are now four refrigerators around the city. The group plans a fifth before the end of the year.

该计划每年的运营费用约为4万美元。它得到了私人团体和市政府的支持。Free-Go于一年前在日内瓦西部的一个社区中心外推出了一台冰箱。现在市内共有四台冰箱。该组织计划在年底前增加一台冰箱。

Marine Delevaux is the project’s director. She said the food left in its refrigerators is usually taken within an hour of being left. For health and legal reasons, no frozen foods, open food containers, prepared meals, or alcohol are permitted in the refrigerators.

玛琳·德勒沃是该项目的负责人。她说，放在冰箱里的食物通常在离开后的一个小时内就会被拿走。出于健康和法律原因，冰箱里不允许放冷冻食品、开启的食品容器、已经准备好的餐食或酒精饮料。

Free-Go also lets people who use the service plan when they will get their food. The idea is to make it easier for people who live in apartment buildings to join the program. There is also a telephone line, or “hotline,” that restaurants can use to call for someone to pick up unused food.

Free-Go还允许使用该服务的人计划何时领取食物。这个想法是为住在公寓楼里的人更容易加入这个计划。此外，还有一条电话热线，供餐馆使用，可以呼叫人来收取未使用的食物。

“Generally, when the food collected from shops and restaurants arrives in the morning, people are already waiting to help themselves,” Delevaux said.

德勒沃表示：“通常情况下，从商店和餐馆收集到的食物早上一到，人们就已经在等着自己动手了。”

She added that the first Geneva refrigerator helped save 3.2 tons of food from going to waste last year. Of the food donated, only about three percent had to be thrown away because nobody wanted it.

她补充说，去年第一台日内瓦冰箱帮助节省了3.2吨食物浪费。在捐赠的食物中，只有约3%必须被扔掉，因为没人需要它。

Free-Go said those who give food from private businesses, like restaurants or food sellers, must promise to make sure the donated food is safe to eat. Swiss law says food past the “recommended use-by” date can be eaten for up to a year afterwards, Delevaux said.

Free-Go表示，那些从餐馆或食品销售商等私营企业捐赠食物的人必须承诺确保所捐赠的食物是安全的。德勒沃表示，瑞士法律规定，“推荐使用日期”之后的食品可以在一年内食用。

The Swiss government estimates that nearly one-third of all food products are wasted or thrown away. That amounts to about 330 kilograms of food waste per person each year. Of that, about 100 kilograms are waste from households.

瑞

士政府估计，近三分之一的食品产品被浪费或扔掉。每年每人的食品浪费量约为330公斤，其中大约100公斤来自家庭。

Free-Go says about 1 billion tons of food go to waste every year around the world. The group says the waste uses up energy and other resources in the farming and transportation process.

Free-Go表示，全球每年约有10亿吨食物被浪费。该组织称，这些浪费耗尽了农业和运输过程中的能源和其他资源。

“Wasting food is not only an ethical and economic issue but it also depletes the environment of limited natural resources,” the European Union’s Commission said.

欧盟委员会表示：“浪费食物不仅是道德和经济问题，还耗尽了有限的自然资源。”

Similar food-sharing campaigns are in place in the Swiss capital, Bern, and in the town of Neuchatel. The idea was first imported from Germany.

类似的食品共享活动在瑞士首都伯尔尼和诺伊舍泰尔镇也得到了实施。这个想法最初来自德国。

Foodsharing.de is a community group in Germany that started more than 10 years ago. It said that more than half a million people in Germany, Switzerland and Austria have made “the food-sharing initiative an international movement.” The group said it has helped save 83 million tons of food from going to waste.

Foodsharing.de是德国的一个社区组织，始于十多年前。它说，在德国、瑞士和奥地利，有超过50万人参与了“食品分享倡议成为一个国际运动”。该组织表示，它已经帮助节省了8300万吨食物的浪费。

Because the food is free, and the donations can change, it is not always clear what will appear in the refrigerators. Some people receiving food might not get what they want or need.

由于食物是免费提供的，而捐赠的食物种类可能会变化，所以并不总是清楚冰箱里会有什么。有些人收到的食物可能不是他们想要或需要的。

Outside a community center in Geneva recently, Shala Moradi said she was looking for some bread and there was none. She is 65 years old and came from Iran. She has lived in Geneva for 10 years. She said she appreciates the initiative.

最近在日内瓦的一个社区中心外，沙拉·莫拉迪说她正在寻找一些面包，但没有了。她今年65岁，来自伊朗。她在日内瓦生活了10年。她表示她很欣赏这个倡议。

“It’s very good. I can take strawberries, cherries, things like that,” she said, talking about the different food that is available. Of the no cost food, she said, “I like that too.”

她说：“这非常好。我可以拿草莓、樱桃等等，”她谈论了可供选择的不同食物。对于这些免费的食物，她说：“我也喜欢。”

Severine Cuendet is a 54-year-old teacher. Just after leaving some vegetables that she grew, she said, “We have too much” and praised the initiative “because this neighborhood has a lot of need.”

塞韦林·库恩代特是一名54岁的教师。她刚刚离开了一些她种的蔬菜，她说：“我们有太多了”，并赞扬了这个倡议“因为这个社区需要很多。”

She added, “And it happens to all of us to buy too much.”

她补充说：“而且我们所有人都会买太多东西。”

I’m Gregory Stachel. And I'm Faith Pirlo.

我是格雷戈里·斯塔切尔。我是费斯·皮尔洛。

Words in This Story

refrigerator – n. a device or room that is used to keep food cold

apartment building –n. a building that holds many places to live which could have one or several rooms

pick up –v. to go to get something and take it back to where it is needed

shop – n. a building or room where goods and services are sold

deplete – v. to use most or all of (something important): to greatly reduce the amount of (something)

initiative – n. a plan or program that is intended to solve a problem

appreciate – v. to understand the worth or importance of (something or someone): to admire and value (something or someone)