Trash and Treasure垃圾与财富

奥利弗·温赖特 刘晶晶

Its now a hundred times more lucrative to mine gold from e-dumps than from the ground. A new show reflects on how we can reverse throwaway culture。如今，從电子垃圾堆中提取黄金的利润是从地下开采黄金的一百倍。一场展览就如何摈弃一次性文化展开思考。

How will this age be remembered？ After the stone age， the bronze age， the steam age and the information age， what material or innovation will most define the current era？ According to a new exhibition at Londons Design Museum， the most ubiquitous hallmark of the Anthropocene1 is not a gamechanging material， nor the mastery of technology. Its trash.

“We are arguably living in the waste age，” says Justin McGuirk， the museums chief curator， who has spent three years rifling through rubbish with co-curator Gemma Curtin to put together this timely show. “The production of waste is absolutely central to our way of life， a fundamental part of how the global economy operates. We wanted to show how design is deeply complicit2 in the waste problem—and also best placed to address it.”

Waste Age， which opened on the eve of the Cop26 climate summit， is a wake-up call， not so much to consumers， but to the manufacturers， retailers and， most crucially， government regulators. It is not intended to be a rebuke for buying that take away coffee on your way to the museum， or forgetting your cotton tote bag， but an eye-opening look at the sheer scale of the issue， and the people working on ingenious solutions.

The exhibition begins with a useful reminder that we didnt get here by accident. Humans are not inherently wasteful creatures. Throwaway culture was something we had to learn—indeed， it was a lifestyle choice， marketed from the mid 20th century onwards as a decadent release， following the austerity of wartime. It was the intentional opposite of “make do and mend3”. One advert from the 1960s extols the wonders of the new-fangled4 polystyrene cup： “New and very in！ The party ‘glass you just enjoy … and throw away.” It hangs next to a plastic carrier bag from the 1980s， printed with descriptions of its many advantages over paper. Little did we know that， four decades later， the world would be consuming more than a million plastic bags a minute.

Generating waste， the curators argue， has long been a primary engine of the economy. The history of the lightbulb is an illuminating case in point. In the 1920s， bulbs were so long-lasting that they were deemed commercially unviable5. General Electric， Philips and others formed the Phoebus cartel in 1924 to standardise the life expectancy of lightbulbs at 1，000 hours—down from the previous 2，500 hours. And so the culture of planned obsolescence6 was born. Almost a century later， similar practices continue： last year Apple agreed to pay up to $500m， after it was accused of deliberately slowing down older phone models to encourage consumers to buy the latest handsets.

A striking installation by Ibrahim Mahama brings home the reality of where such defunct electronics end up. He has erected a giant wall of old TV monitors that play clips from Agbogbloshie in Ghana， for many years the worlds largest e-waste dump， where informal workers burn electrical cables to harvest the copper wire and other precious metals. Mahama has commissioned them to cast the salvaged7 metal in the form of TV screen surrounds8， which frame footage9 showing this toxic process. The scenes are desperate， but the message is clear： waste is precious.

About 7% of gold supplies are trapped inside existing electronic devices， meaning that， according to some estimates， by 2080 the largest metal reserves will not be underground but circulating inside products. Whats more， one tonne of extracted gold ore yields 3g of gold， whereas recycling one tonne of mobile phones yields 300g. So waste dumps and landfill sites are the new resource-rich mines.

“In many ways ‘waste is a category error，” says McGuirk. “Its often perfectly good material thats simply undervalued.” The exhibition includes designers who are already working on what a future of “above-ground mining” might look like， exploring how objects and buildings can be dismantled and their parts reused. There is the work of the pioneering Belgian group Rotor， a team of architects who set up a demolition company to carefully remove materials and components from buildings slated for10 the wrecking ball.

Their Brussels warehouse brims with11 everything from marble slabs to vintage lamps， the spoils of what they call “forestry in the city”. It is shown alongside the refurbishment12 projects of French architects Lacaton & Vassal， for whom demolition is “a waste of energy， a waste of material， a waste of history [and] an act of violence”. At a time when global construction waste is set to double to 2.2bn tonnes a year by 2025， their joint calls to reuse what we already have couldnt be more urgent.

In the consumer goods sphere， the reuse cause is championed by the likes of iFixit， an online global repair platform that publishes free repair guides and sells spare parts and tools， such as a screwdriver to disassemble the iPhone. iFixit has been lobbying governments for repairability legislation since 2003， with some success.

France is the first country in Europe to implement a Repairability Index， adopted in January， which requires manufacturers to provide clear information on the repairability of smartphones， laptops， washing machines， televisions and lawnmowers， and award their products scores out of 10. The iPhone 11 may include some recycled rare-earth elements， but it got a repairability score of 4.5 out of 10.

The final section of the exhibition moves beyond fixing and recycling to imagine a “post-waste” world， where materials are grown rather than extracted. Design exhibition regulars might be familiar with the wonders of hempcrete13 or mycelium14 insulation， but this show includes a dazzling range of innovations， from water soluble electronic circuit boards made of natural fibres， to “sea stone”， a concrete-like mater-ial made from crushed seashells. Also featured are Sonys packaging made from bamboo and sugarcane （embossed rather than printed， to save ink waste）， Notpla15s seaweed-based sachets for liquids and condiments， a polystyrene substitute made from sunflowers， and a new kind of leather made from coconut water—alongside things made from algae16， cornhusks and organic pulps17 of all kinds.

Such biodegradable solutions come with their own pitfalls： how many times have you thrown a plastic container in the recycling bin， before realising it was actually compostable Vegware18？ And should it go in the compost bin or landfill？ Behaviour and expectations will have to adjust to meet the brave new bio-future.

McGuirk writes in the exhibition catalogue： “After nearly a century of appreciating the hard-smooth-shiny perfection of plastics， we may begin to embrace irregularity， imperfection， decay and decomposition.”

Your future organo-laptop might not over-heat， slow down， or need its battery constantly replaced. But it might start to go mouldy19 instead.

后人将怎样铭记这个时代？继石器时代、青铜时代、蒸汽时代和信息时代之后，哪种材料或创新最能定义当今时代？伦敦设计博物馆举办的一场新展览告诉我们，人类世最俯拾皆是的标志既不是某种变革性的材料，也不是对技术的精通，而是垃圾。

“可以说我们生活在‘垃圾时代，垃圾的产生是全球经济运行的基本环节，在人类现有生活方式里绝对至关重要。我们的初衷是想展现：对于垃圾问题，设计着实难辞其咎，却也是解决此问题的最佳途径。” 博物馆首席策展人贾斯廷·麦吉尔克说道。他与联合策展人杰玛·柯廷历时三年搜寻垃圾，才策划出这场正合时宜的展览。

开展于第26届联合国气候变化大会前夕的 “垃圾时代”主题展是一记警钟，要警示的对象与其说是消费者，不如说是制造商、零售商和最需要警觉起来的政府监管机构。此展览的目的不在于谴责你来馆路上买份外带咖啡或者出门忘记带棉布手提袋的行为，而在于以开阔的视野关注垃圾问题的庞大规模以及研发巧妙对策的人们。

展览开场便提醒我们：发展到今天的局面并非偶然。浪费并不是人类的天性。一次性文化是我們必须学习的东西——实际上，这是一种个人选择的生活方式。这种文化作为战时节俭风气过后的颓废式发泄，从20世纪中期一直被推广至今。它故意与“缝缝补补又三年”的观念背道而驰。展厅挂有一则来自20世纪60年代的广告，颂扬了当时的新发明聚苯乙烯水杯之神奇：“又新又潮！聚会开怀畅饮……用毕一扔就好。” 旁边的展品是一个来自上世纪80年代的塑料袋，上面印着塑料袋相比纸袋子的种种优势。那时的人们还不知道，40年后，全世界每分钟都会消耗超过100万个塑料袋。

策展人还表示，制造垃圾早已成为经济发展的一个重要引擎。电灯泡的历史就是鲜明的例证。20世纪20年代，电灯泡经久耐用，人们一度认定生产电灯泡无法盈利。1924年，通用电气、飞利浦等公司成立了太阳神垄断联盟，目的是统一灯泡的寿命，由原来的2500小时调低至1000小时。至此，“计划报废”兴起了。近一个世纪后，类似做法还在继续：2020年苹果公司被指控故意降低老款手机的运行速度，以此鼓励用户购买新机，最终该公司同意拿出高达五亿美元进行赔付。

艺术家易卜拉欣·马哈马的作品十分惹眼，这个装置揭示了此类报废电子产品的最终归宿。他搭建了一面由旧电视机显示器组成的巨墙，上面播放着加纳阿博布罗西镇的画面。多年来此地一直是世界上最大的电子垃圾倾倒地，非正式工人在那里焚烧电缆，从中获取铜和其他珍贵金属。马哈马委托他们把回收来的金属浇铸成电视屏幕边框的形状，这些边框框住的显示屏里播放着有毒物质产生的过程。画面触目惊心，但传达的信息很明确：垃圾也是宝。

约7%的黄金供应都用于制作电子产品。据预测，这意味着到了2080年，最大的金属储备不在地下，而将在各种产品之间流通。不仅如此，一吨金矿能提炼出3克黄金，而一吨报废手机却能提炼出300克黄金。因此，垃圾堆和填埋场就是新的富矿。

“从很多方面来讲，‘垃圾是一个分类错误。” 麦吉尔克说，“垃圾通常都是绝佳的材料，只不过被低估了。”展览邀请的设计师中有些已经对未来的“地上采矿”进行了构想，研究如何拆卸物品和建筑以及重新利用那些零部件。展品中就有来自比利时先锋公司Rotor的作品，这是一家多位建筑师共同创立的拆迁公司，致力于从本该由破碎锤进行拆迁作业的建筑物里精心拣出建材和零部件。

他们位于布鲁塞尔的仓库里放满了五花八门的东西，从大理石板到古董台灯，都是从他们所谓的 “城市丛林”里搜罗而来的战利品。旁边的展品来自法国建筑事务所Lacaton & Vassal，是一些翻新項目。该团队认为，拆迁是“一种能源浪费、材料浪费、历史资源浪费，也是一种暴力行径”。据预测，2025年全球建筑垃圾总量将比2021年翻一番，达到22亿吨。在这样的关头，他们共同发出的“重复利用”的倡议，急需人们的响应。

在消费品领域，诸如iFixit这样的平台倡导重复利用。这是一家全球在线修理平台，发布免费的修理指南，还售卖备用零件和工具，如能拆卸苹果手机的螺丝刀。iFixit自2003年起游说各国政府制定有关“可修复性”的法律法规，至今已取得一些成果。

法国是欧洲第一个施行“可修复性指数”的国家，相关法案2021年1月生效，要求智能手机、笔记本电脑、洗衣机、电视和割草机制造商提供产品可修复性的明确信息，然后会按十分制给这些产品打分。虽然iPhone11手机内含有一些回收利用的稀土元素，但其可修复性得分仅为4.5（满分10分）。

展览的最后一个单元不再是关于修补和回收，而是更进一步地构想出一个“后垃圾”世界，那里的人们种植而不是提炼材料。设计展的常客可能对 “汉麻混凝土”或“菌丝体隔热材料”这类神奇事物很熟悉了，但此展还囊括了令人眼花缭乱的各式创新产物，从天然纤维制成的水溶性电子线路板到“海石”，即碎海贝壳做的类似混凝土的材料。值得一看的还有索尼公司开发的包装材料，由竹子和甘蔗制成（包装文字采用压花工艺以减少油墨浪费）;伦敦的可持续包装公司Notpla开发的饮料和调味料小包装袋，原材料为海藻;向日葵制成的聚苯乙烯替代材料;一种新型皮革，原材料是椰汁;参展的还有原料为藻类、玉米皮以及各种有机浆糊的各式产品。

这类可生物降解的方案也存在缺陷，比如：有多少次你把一个塑料容器扔进可回收垃圾箱，却不知道它其实是可堆肥的Vegware产品？那么它是不是该进堆肥箱或者垃圾填埋场呢？为了迎接美丽的新生物世界，我们要调整自己的行为和期许。

麦吉尔克在展览目录中写道：“近一个世纪以来，质地坚硬、表面光滑、色泽光亮的塑料堪称完美，令人喜爱。现在，我们可以开始接受不规则、有瑕疵、腐烂和分解了。”

未来你的“有机笔记本电脑”也许不会温度过高，速度不会变慢，也不需要频繁更换电池。但可能会发霉。

（译者单位：扬州大学）

1人类世，是指地球的最近代历史，可能由18世纪末人类活动对气候及生态系统造成全球性影响开始。

2 complicit有同谋关系的，串通的。  3 make do and mend原为英国二战期间兴起的一场节俭运动，号召民众对已购置的物品进行修补翻新，而不是重新购买，现作为英语习语意为“修修补补将就使用”。这里使用归化的手段，套用一句汉语俗语以便于读者理解。4 new-fangled（新想法或新设备）时髦复杂的。

5 unviable（尤指经济上）不能成功的，行不通的。  6 planned obsolescence计划报废（为增加销量故意制造不耐用商品）。  7 salvage挽救;挽回。

8 surround围绕物;缘饰。  9 footage电影片段;镜头。  10 be slated for被规划为。  11 brim with充满;充溢。

12 refurbishment翻新;整修。

13 hempcrete汉麻混凝土，由大麻和石灰等混合而成。  14 mycelium菌丝;菌丝体。  15此公司致力于开发可代替塑料的环保材料。Notpla一词来源于Not Plastic，意为“不是塑料”。  16 algae藻类。  17 pulp浆;糊。

18一家总部位于苏格兰的包装公司，其产品由可再生的植物材料制成，可与食物垃圾一起进行商业堆肥。  19 mouldy发霉的;生霉的。