Trash and Treasure垃圾與財富

奧利弗·溫賴特 劉晶晶

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，從電子垃圾堆中提取黃金的利潤是從地下開采黃金的一百倍。一場展覽就如何擯棄一次性文化展開思考。

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.

后人將怎樣銘記這個時代？繼石器時代、青銅時代、蒸汽時代和信息時代之后，哪種材料或創新最能定義當今時代？倫敦設計博物館舉辦的一場新展覽告訴我們，人類世最俯拾皆是的標志既不是某種變革性的材料，也不是對技術的精通，而是垃圾。

“可以說我們生活在‘垃圾時代，垃圾的產生是全球經濟運行的基本環節，在人類現有生活方式里絕對至關重要。我們的初衷是想展現：對于垃圾問題，設計著實難辭其咎，卻也是解決此問題的最佳途徑?！?博物館首席策展人賈斯廷·麥吉爾克說道。他與聯合策展人杰瑪·柯廷歷時三年搜尋垃圾，才策劃出這場正合時宜的展覽。

開展于第26屆聯合國氣候變化大會前夕的 “垃圾時代”主題展是一記警鐘，要警示的對象與其說是消費者，不如說是制造商、零售商和最需要警覺起來的政府監管機構。此展覽的目的不在于譴責你來館路上買份外帶咖啡或者出門忘記帶棉布手提袋的行為，而在于以開闊的視野關注垃圾問題的龐大規模以及研發巧妙對策的人們。

展覽開場便提醒我們：發展到今天的局面并非偶然。浪費并不是人類的天性。一次性文化是我們必須學習的東西——實際上，這是一種個人選擇的生活方式。這種文化作為戰時節儉風氣過后的頹廢式發泄，從20世紀中期一直被推廣至今。它故意與“縫縫補補又三年”的觀念背道而馳。展廳掛有一則來自20世紀60年代的廣告，頌揚了當時的新發明聚苯乙烯水杯之神奇：“又新又潮！聚會開懷暢飲……用畢一扔就好?！?旁邊的展品是一個來自上世紀80年代的塑料袋，上面印著塑料袋相比紙袋子的種種優勢。那時的人們還不知道，40年后，全世界每分鐘都會消耗超過100萬個塑料袋。

策展人還表示，制造垃圾早已成為經濟發展的一個重要引擎。電燈泡的歷史就是鮮明的例證。20世紀20年代，電燈泡經久耐用，人們一度認定生產電燈泡無法盈利。1924年，通用電氣、飛利浦等公司成立了太陽神壟斷聯盟，目的是統一燈泡的壽命，由原來的2500小時調低至1000小時。至此，“計劃報廢”興起了。近一個世紀后，類似做法還在繼續：2020年蘋果公司被指控故意降低老款手機的運行速度，以此鼓勵用戶購買新機，最終該公司同意拿出高達五億美元進行賠付。

藝術家易卜拉欣·馬哈馬的作品十分惹眼，這個裝置揭示了此類報廢電子產品的最終歸宿。他搭建了一面由舊電視機顯示器組成的巨墻，上面播放著加納阿博布羅西鎮的畫面。多年來此地一直是世界上最大的電子垃圾傾倒地，非正式工人在那里焚燒電纜，從中獲取銅和其他珍貴金屬。馬哈馬委托他們把回收來的金屬澆鑄成電視屏幕邊框的形狀，這些邊框框住的顯示屏里播放著有毒物質產生的過程。畫面觸目驚心，但傳達的信息很明確：垃圾也是寶。

約7%的黃金供應都用于制作電子產品。據預測，這意味著到了2080年，最大的金屬儲備不在地下，而將在各種產品之間流通。不僅如此，一噸金礦能提煉出3克黃金，而一噸報廢手機卻能提煉出300克黃金。因此，垃圾堆和填埋場就是新的富礦。

“從很多方面來講，‘垃圾是一個分類錯誤?！?麥吉爾克說，“垃圾通常都是絕佳的材料，只不過被低估了。”展覽邀請的設計師中有些已經對未來的“地上采礦”進行了構想，研究如何拆卸物品和建筑以及重新利用那些零部件。展品中就有來自比利時先鋒公司Rotor的作品，這是一家多位建筑師共同創立的拆遷公司，致力于從本該由破碎錘進行拆遷作業的建筑物里精心揀出建材和零部件。

他們位于布魯塞爾的倉庫里放滿了五花八門的東西，從大理石板到古董臺燈，都是從他們所謂的 “城市叢林”里搜羅而來的戰利品。旁邊的展品來自法國建筑事務所Lacaton & Vassal，是一些翻新項目。該團隊認為，拆遷是“一種能源浪費、材料浪費、歷史資源浪費，也是一種暴力行徑”。據預測，2025年全球建筑垃圾總量將比2021年翻一番，達到22億噸。在這樣的關頭，他們共同發出的“重復利用”的倡議，急需人們的響應。

在消費品領域，諸如iFixit這樣的平臺倡導重復利用。這是一家全球在線修理平臺，發布免費的修理指南，還售賣備用零件和工具，如能拆卸蘋果手機的螺絲刀。iFixit自2003年起游說各國政府制定有關“可修復性”的法律法規，至今已取得一些成果。

法國是歐洲第一個施行“可修復性指數”的國家，相關法案2021年1月生效，要求智能手機、筆記本電腦、洗衣機、電視和割草機制造商提供產品可修復性的明確信息，然后會按十分制給這些產品打分。雖然iPhone11手機內含有一些回收利用的稀土元素，但其可修復性得分僅為4.5（滿分10分）。

展覽的最后一個單元不再是關于修補和回收，而是更進一步地構想出一個“后垃圾”世界，那里的人們種植而不是提煉材料。設計展的常客可能對 “漢麻混凝土”或“菌絲體隔熱材料”這類神奇事物很熟悉了，但此展還囊括了令人眼花繚亂的各式創新產物，從天然纖維制成的水溶性電子線路板到“海石”，即碎海貝殼做的類似混凝土的材料。值得一看的還有索尼公司開發的包裝材料，由竹子和甘蔗制成（包裝文字采用壓花工藝以減少油墨浪費）;倫敦的可持續包裝公司Notpla開發的飲料和調味料小包裝袋，原材料為海藻;向日葵制成的聚苯乙烯替代材料;一種新型皮革，原材料是椰汁;參展的還有原料為藻類、玉米皮以及各種有機漿糊的各式產品。

這類可生物降解的方案也存在缺陷，比如：有多少次你把一個塑料容器扔進可回收垃圾箱，卻不知道它其實是可堆肥的Vegware產品？那么它是不是該進堆肥箱或者垃圾填埋場呢？為了迎接美麗的新生物世界，我們要調整自己的行為和期許。

麥吉爾克在展覽目錄中寫道：“近一個世紀以來，質地堅硬、表面光滑、色澤光亮的塑料堪稱完美，令人喜愛?，F在，我們可以開始接受不規則、有瑕疵、腐爛和分解了。”

未來你的“有機筆記本電腦”也許不會溫度過高，速度不會變慢，也不需要頻繁更換電池。但可能會發霉。

（譯者單位：揚州大學）

1人類世，是指地球的最近代歷史，可能由18世紀末人類活動對氣候及生態系統造成全球性影響開始。

2 complicit有同謀關系的，串通的。? 3 make do and mend原為英國二戰期間興起的一場節儉運動，號召民眾對已購置的物品進行修補翻新，而不是重新購買，現作為英語習語意為“修修補補將就使用”。這里使用歸化的手段，套用一句漢語俗語以便于讀者理解。4 new-fangled（新想法或新設備）時髦復雜的。

5 unviable（尤指經濟上）不能成功的，行不通的。? 6 planned obsolescence計劃報廢（為增加銷量故意制造不耐用商品）。? 7 salvage挽救;挽回。

8 surround圍繞物;緣飾。? 9 footage電影片段;鏡頭。? 10 be slated for被規劃為。? 11 brim with充滿;充溢。

12 refurbishment翻新;整修。

13 hempcrete漢麻混凝土，由大麻和石灰等混合而成。? 14 mycelium菌絲;菌絲體。? 15此公司致力于開發可代替塑料的環保材料。Notpla一詞來源于Not Plastic，意為“不是塑料”。? 16 algae藻類。? 17 pulp漿;糊。

18一家總部位于蘇格蘭的包裝公司，其產品由可再生的植物材料制成，可與食物垃圾一起進行商業堆肥。? 19 mouldy發霉的;生霉的。