外刊双语：电池回收再利用与循环经济的意义？

原文标题：
Green manufacturing
The circular economy
Battery-makers are learning that recycling should not be an afterthought
绿色制造
循环经济
电池制造商认识到回收利用不应该靠边站

A virtuous circle
Battery-makers are powering a circular economy
“Gigafactories” are being designed to recycle raw materials
良性循环
电池制造商正在推动循环经济的发展
“超级电池工厂”回收原材料

[Paragraph 1]
MANUFACTURING IS A one-way business. Raw materials go into a factory and finished products come out.Once those goods are sold, producers (initial guarantees apart) usually wash their hands of them.

制造业是一种单向商业模式。工厂投入原材料产出成品。一旦这些商品售出，生产者（初始担保除外）通常就不管了。

Certainly they do not worry, unless compelled to by law, about how the products are disposed of. Most are burnt or rot in landfill, which pollutes the planet.

当然，除非法律强制要求，他们无需担心废旧产品的处理问题。大部分废旧产品都在垃圾填埋场里焚烧或腐烂了，这对地球造成了污染。

In only 50 years the world’s consumption of raw materials has nearly quadrupled, to more than 100bn tonnes, according to the latest Circularity Gap Report from the World Economic Forum. Less than 9% of this is reused, resulting in a big waste of materials.
世界经济论坛最新发布的《循环度差距报告》表明，仅50年时间，全球原材料消费量就超过1000亿吨，是原来的4倍。其中不到9%被重复利用，这导致了大量的材料浪费。

[Paragraph 2]
Industry does talk about sustainability and recycling, but much of that is greenwashing intended to improve brand images.
这个行业也确实谈到了可持续性和回收利用的问题，但其中大部分是“漂绿”行为，目的是为了改善品牌形象。

Yet in the circular economy the bottom line, too, can benefit from greenery.
然而，在循环经济中，企业最终也可以从绿色制造中受益。

This is especially so in the case of “gigafactories”, so called because their output of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) is measured in gigawatt hours (GWh).
“超级电池工厂”尤其如此。由于电动汽车的电池输出衡量单位是千兆瓦时，因此称为“超级电池工厂”。

[Paragraph 3]
Every carmaking country wants gigafactories. Batteries are the costliest part of an EV, so making them is lucrative.
每个汽车制造国家都想要建超级工厂。电池是电动汽车中最昂贵的部分，因此制造电池利润可观。

But they contain materials such as lithium, cobalt, manganese and nickel that are pricey and can be hard to obtain.
但电池含有锂、钴、锰和镍等昂贵且难以获得的材料。

Supply chains are long and complicated.Buyers risk being tarnished by their suppliers’ (or suppliers’ suppliers’) poor environmental and labour standards.
加上供应链漫长而复杂。买方可能会因其供应商（或供应商的供应商）糟糕的环境和劳工标准而名声受损。

Reusing materials makes sense.
因此，重复利用材料的意义非凡。

[Paragraph 4]
Being new, most gigafactories are designed with recycling in mind from the start.
大多数新的超级电池工厂在最初的设计上就考虑到了回收利用的问题。

The result is a circular production process, not a linear one.
最终形成一个闭环生产过程，而不是线性生产过程。

The idea is that once batteries reach the ends of their lives, they should go back to a factory, where their ingredients can be recovered and put into new batteries.
这理念是，电池一旦寿命结束就应该回到工厂，工厂可以回收原料并将其放入新电池中。

[Paragraph 5]
Gigafactories are not yet exemplars of the circular economy, but they are laying the foundations.
超级电池工厂还不是循环经济的典范，但它们起到了奠基作用。

Northvolt, a Swedish battery-maker, aims by 2030 to produce 150GWh of batteries—enough to power some 2m EVs—from the three gigafactories it is completing.
瑞典电池制造商Northvolt的目标是到2030年建成三个超级电池工厂，且年产能达到150千兆瓦时，这足以为200万辆左右的电动汽车供电。

By then, around half its raw materials should come from recycling old batteries. Northvolt is not alone.
到那时，约有一半的原材料应该来自回收的旧电池。Northvolt并不是唯一的一家。

Using recycling, renewable power and other measures, CATL—a Chinese firm and the world’s biggest producer of EV batteries—thinks it should eventually be possible to shrink the carbon footprint of a battery towards zero.
中国企业宁德时代是世界上最大的电动汽车电池生产商，该公司采取回收利用、可再生能源及其他措施，最终有可能将电池的碳排放减少到0。

[Paragraph 6]
Carmakers such as the Renault Group and Stellantis, are both setting up circular-economy businesses.
雷诺集团和斯特兰蒂斯等汽车制造商都在建立循环经济业务。

This is not just for batteries, but also for repairing and reconditioning parts and vehicles. Each of these operations will, bosses hope, have annual revenues of more than €2bn ($2bn) by the end of the decade, and be profitable.
这不仅适用于电池，也适用于修理和翻新零件和车辆。老板们希望，到本世纪末，每一项业务的年收入都将超过20亿欧元（20亿美元），利润很可观。

Renault reckons around 85% of a car is recyclable, but only 20-30% of the materials in new vehicles are recycled, often from other goods. Circular manufacturing would greatly increase that share.
雷诺估计，大约85%的汽车是可回收的，但新车中只有20-30%的材料来自其他回收的物品。循环制造将大大提高这一比例。

[Paragraph 7]
Could other industries do something similar?
其他行业会做类似的回收利用吗？

Fast fashion is a notoriously wasteful business in which little-worn clothes are burnt or dumped.
快时尚行业因浪费出了名，衣服没穿几次就被烧掉或丢弃了。

America’s Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the recycling rate for clothing and footwear is just 13%.
美国国家环境保护局估计，服装和鞋类的回收率仅为13%。

A big part of the reason is the use of mixed textiles, which are hard to recycle.
很大一部分原因是混合纺织品的使用，而混合纺织品很难回收再利用。

Clothing companies could, like gigafactories, re-engineer their processes to employ fibres that are easier to handle.
服装公司可以像超级电池工厂一样，重新设计工艺，例如采用更易处理的纤维。

Consumer electronics is another business that creates heaps of waste, despite electronic circuits containing precious materials such as gold and silver, and electric motors being made from rare-earth metals like neodymium and dysprosium.
尽管消费类电子产品中的电子电路含有金和银等贵金属材料，电动机由钕和镝等稀土金属制成，但消费类电子是另一个产生大量废旧物品的行业。

Fortunes could yet be made in the urban mining of last year’s gadgets and yesterday’s togs.
财富可能来自于城市矿产，例如去年的小玩意和昨天的玩具。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量652左右）
原文出自：2022年10月29日《TE》Leaders版块。

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路
本文翻译整理: Irene本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
Northvolt，瑞典电池制造商 ，成立于2016年，是瑞典斯德哥尔摩一家新能源公司，由大众集团、高盛、西门子创办。2022年3月，Northvolt在官网宣布，将在德国北部石勒苏益格-荷尔斯泰因州新建一座超级电池工厂。这是他们在瑞典之外的首座工厂。  2022年5月，瑞典电池制造商 Northvolt 开始出货，成为第一家向汽车制造商提供动力电池的欧洲企业。是欧洲最大的电动汽车电池回收厂，每年可处理约 2.5 万个废旧电池。

宁德时代新能源科技股份有限公司（catl）。宁德时代新能源科技股份有限公司成立于2011年，是国内率先具备国际竞争力的动力电池制造商之一，专注于新能源汽车动力电池系统、储能系统的研发、生产和销售，致力于为全球新能源应用提供一流解决方案。核心技术包括在动力和储能电池领域，材料、电芯、电池系统、电池回收二次利用等全产业链研发及制造能力。成功在全球市场上占据一席之地，也成为国内率先进入国际顶尖车企供应链的锂离子动力电池制造商。
城市矿产Urban Mining是指工业化和城镇化过程中产生和蕴藏于废旧机电设备、电线电缆、通讯工具、汽车、家电、电子产品、金属和塑料包装物以及废料中，可循环利用的钢铁、有色金属、贵金属、塑料、橡胶等资源。其利用量相当于原生矿产资源。开展“城市矿产”示范基地建设是缓解资源瓶颈约束，减轻环境污染的有效途径，也是发展循环经济、培育战略性新兴产业的重要内容。
【重点句子】（3 个）
Industry does talk about sustainability and recycling, but much of that is greenwashing intended to improve brand images.
这个行业也确实谈到了可持续性和回收利用的问题，但其中大部分是“漂绿”行为，目的是为了改善品牌形象。

Gigafactories are not yet exemplars of the circular economy, but they are laying the foundations.
超级电池工厂还不是循环经济的典范，但它们起到了奠基作用。

A big part of the reason is the use of mixed textiles, which are hard to recycle.
很大一部分原因是混合纺织品的使用，而混合纺织品很难回收再利用。