世界黑客：令人惊讶的口香糖来世

British designer Anna Bullus is on a mission to recycle chewing gum into useful objects, cleaning up our streets in the process.

英国设计师安娜布勒斯的任务是回收口香糖，将其变废为宝，从而清理街道。

More than ?14bn is spent on chewing gum around the world each year, but a lot of that gum will end up stuck to the ground.

世界各地每年处理口香糖费用超过140亿英镑,但很多口香糖还是留在了地面上。

Gum is the second most common type of street litter after cigarette materials.

口香糖是仅次于香烟的第二常见的街头垃圾。

In the UK, councils spend around ?50m each year cleaning up the mess.

英国议会每年花费约5000万清理口香糖。

But Anna had an idea. What if the sticky stuff could actually be recycled and turned into useful objects?

但是安娜有个主意。如果这些黏糊糊的东西真的可以循环利用，变成有用的东西呢？

Around 10 years ago, she began a project looking at kerbside litter. She examined random samples, looking at things like crisp packets and cigarette butts. She then tried to figure out which elements could be recycled.

大约10年前，她开始研究路边垃圾。随机抽样看到了一些像薯片和烟头之类的东西。然后她试图找出哪些元素可以回收利用。

"One of the litters I found was a piece of chewing gum and as a designer I was completely amazed there was nothing actually being done to recycle it," she said.

她说:“我发现的其中一种垃圾口香糖，作为一名设计师，我完全惊呆了，其实没有什么东西可以回收口香糖。”

Researching the chemistry of chewing gum, she discovered that its main ingredient, the gum base, is commonly a synthetic rubber, a type of polymer similar to plastic.

研究口香糖化学成分时，她发现口香糖的主要成分是胶基，通常是一种合成橡胶，一种类似塑料的聚合物。

"It’s called polyisobutylene," explains Anna, "the same stuff you find in the inner tube of bicycle wheels."

安娜解释说：“就是聚异丁烯，自行车内胎就是这种物质。”

It is obtained from petrochemicals, which are refined from fossil fuels like crude oil.

从原油等化石燃料中提炼出石化产品，从石化产品中提炼出聚异丁烯。

She realised that chewing gum, even once it has been finished with, is a versatile and potentially useful material.

她意识到，即便是嚼过的口香糖也是一种用途广泛且可能有用的材料。

Collecting gum

收集口香糖

But how do you persuade people to donate their gum - instead of carelessly tossing it on to the street?

但是如何说服人们捐赠口香糖而不是随意地把它吐在街道上?

As part of her strategy, Anna created bright pink, bubble-shaped bins specially for disposing of gum called Gumdrop, which can be hung at head-height.

作为其策略的一部分，安娜设计了亮粉色、泡沫状的箱子，专门用来处理被称为Gumdrop的口香糖，它可以与头部等高。

These bins are themselves made of recycled chewing gum. A message next to the bins explains that any gum collected will be recycled into new objects.

这些箱子用来回收口香糖。垃圾箱旁边的标识解释说，回收的口香糖将用来制作新物品。

But would gum-chewers use them?

但是嚼口香糖的人会用吗？

The University of Winchester was one of the first places to sign up to use the bins. Around 8,000 people live and work on its campus and the authorities wanted to keep it clean of gum litter.

温彻斯特大学是最早报名使用该垃圾箱的地方之一。大约有8000人在校园中生活和工作，学校希望保持清洁没有口香糖垃圾。

It adopted a twin-pronged strategy to tackle the problem.

该校采取了双管齐下的策略来解决这个问题。

It installed 11 of Anna’s special bins and to reinforce the message that gum can be recycled if disposed of responsibly, it gave out hundreds of coffee cups made of recycled gum to first-year students.

学校安装了11个安娜设计的专用垃圾桶，并宣传道：如果处理得当，口香糖可回收利用，将分发几百个由回收口香糖制成的咖啡杯给大一新生。

"Students would give the cup a sniff to check it didn’t smell of mint or bubble gum," recalls Liz Harris, the university’s environmental officer.

“学生们会用鼻子嗅一嗅，看看能否闻到薄荷味或泡泡糖的味道，”该校环境官员利兹哈里斯回忆道。

It’s because so much of the chewing gum sold on the high street is a polymer [so it] can be used to make new products.

这是因为大街上卖的口香糖是一种聚合物，可以用来制造新产品。

When people get it, it’s a really nice moment.

嚼口香糖是一个非常美好的时刻。

Eighteen months later, the university noticed a drop in gum litter and is expanding the scheme.

18个月后，该校注意到口香糖垃圾减少，不断扩大该计划。

Heathrow Airport also ran a three-month trial which it said led to a "noticeable improvement" and saved it ?6,000 in cleaning costs. Great Western Railway has installed the bins in more than 25 of its railway stations and is rolling out the scheme further.

希思罗机场也试用了三个月，表示情况“明显改善”,节约了6000英镑的清理成本。大西部铁路在超过25个火车站安装了该垃圾箱，并将进一步推广该计划。

In each case, the bins did not suddenly solve the problem of gum litter, but they did seem to begin to change people’s behaviour.

垃圾箱并没有解决口香糖垃圾的问题，但似乎开始改变人们的行为。