Quick and dirty

China’s food-delivery business is booming. So is waste

Wooden chopsticks and plastic boxes threaten the environment? ?Oct 19th 2017 | BEIJING

外賣很快但不干凈? ? ? ? ?外賣火爆，隨之而來的垃圾也是? ? 一次性碗筷威脅著環(huán)境

THREE couriers in hard helmets cram into an office lift in Beijing—one clad in red, one in yellow and one in blue. The trio are dispatching food that was purchased online through China’s most popular meal-ordering firms, which fill urban roads every midday with their colourful delivery people on electric bicycles. Delivery fees as low as three yuan ($0.46) have helped to transform urban lunch-hours. But the booming business is also fuelling concerns about everything from waste to the abuse of workers.

在北京一處辦公場所的電梯里擠進來三名帶著頭盔的外賣小哥，一個紅色一個黃色一個藍色。 他們外派的食物來自中國最大的網(wǎng)上訂餐平臺的訂單，穿著彩色制服騎著電動車的外賣員大街小巷隨處可見。低至三元的外送費改變了城市的午餐情形。但外賣的迅速發(fā)展也引起了諸多擔憂，從垃圾/浪費到從業(yè)人員環(huán)境。

Such services—which enable users of a single site to order food from a swathe of local restaurants—are expanding around the world. But in China the industry is on a tear. By the end of June, the number of registered users had risen to 295m, 40% more than at the end of last year, according to government analysts. The value of meals bought online was about $25bn in 2016 and could rise to around $36bn by the end of next year, says iiMedia, a research firm. The market leaders are Meituan and Ele.me. Both still make losses in food delivery, but they have backing from Tencent and Alibaba respectively—tech giants eager to find ways of pushing customers to their duelling online payment systems.

網(wǎng)上訂餐服務讓消費者可以用一個APP從當?shù)夭煌牟蛷d訂餐，外賣也在全世界發(fā)展。 但在中國外賣行業(yè)甚囂塵上。據(jù)官方分析有，截止七月有2.95億人注冊使用較去年底增長40%。研究公司iiMedia稱2016年網(wǎng)上訂餐消費達 250億美元明年底有望達到360億美元。外賣行業(yè)的佼佼者是美團和餓了嗎。兩個公司都在虧損，但他們分別有騰訊和阿里巴巴的支持，科技巨頭急切想辦法讓消費者使用自己的網(wǎng)上支付通道。（微信、支付寶）

Such businesses first began to take off in student dormitories. These days young office-workers are by far the biggest market. But there is much hand-wringing about the consequences of their popularity. Officials say the couriers threaten road safety. They ride electric bikes which are cheap, need no licence and are handy in cities like Beijing that restrict the use of motorcycles. Delivery people often mount pavements or drive against the flow of traffic to maximise earnings during the lunchtime rush. Last month officials in Nanjing said meal-delivery bikes in the eastern city had been involved in more than 3,000 accidents in the first six months of the year. In one district of Shanghai police have introduced a penalty-points system. They order those who acquire a certain number of points to perform community service. The police can ask couriers’ employers to fire them.

外賣首先是在大學宿舍興起。目前最火爆的是年輕的上班族們。然而外賣的流行帶來越來越多的擔憂。政府說外賣員影響交通安全。北京禁摩，外賣小哥騎著廉價、沒有拍照且隨手可得的電動車。午餐高峰，他們沖進人行道、逆行就是為了多賺點錢。上個月南京的一名政府人員說今年上半年南京市有超過3000起交通事故跟外賣電動車相關(guān)。上海的一個區(qū)，交警推出一個扣分罰款的條例。要求扣分到一定程度要被要求做義工。 交警有權(quán)要求外賣公司解雇違規(guī)者。

Another worry is the welfare of delivery people, many of whom are migrants from the countryside. In several ways they have it easier than other types of courier: food boxes are easier to handle than bulky parcels, and the recipients are always there. But China Labour Bulletin, an NGO in Hong Kong, says meal deliverers have been staging growing numbers of protests about poor treatment by their employers (usually subcontractors), including wages paid late. Linking their pay to customer ratings has also made it easy for customers to demand more of them than they should: the purchase of groceries en route to their destinations, for example, or the disposal of household rubbish.

另一個擔憂就是快遞員的工作福利水平，他們大多數(shù)是進城務工人員。很多方面他們比其他快遞員更輕松：因為餐盒較笨重的快遞更容易處理，收貨人不會不在（落單）。但位于香港的非政府組織---中國勞工報稱，越來越多的外賣員抗議雇主（很多是二老板，包工頭）的糟糕待遇，也有拖欠工資。快遞員的收入和客戶評價綁定，這方便了客戶對快遞員提出額外要求，如送餐的路上順帶點東西，或者順手帶走家里的垃圾。

Most hotly debated of late is the impact the business is having on the environment. Each day about 65m meal-containers are discarded, by one estimate. Campaigners object to the unwanted cutlery, napkins and chopsticks that restaurants selling through online platforms habitually bundle with orders. The Green Volunteer League of Chongqing, a Chinese NGO, says that food-delivery sites have not made it easy enough for customers to refuse such sundries (the big companies deny this). In September a court in Beijing agreed to examine whether they have violated consumers’ rights.

最近爭論最多的是外賣對環(huán)境的影響。中國每天丟掉大約6500萬個一次性餐盒。餐館對網(wǎng)上來的訂單會默認捆綁不需要的刀叉、餐巾和一次性筷子，環(huán)保主義者對此提出抗議。位于重慶的非政府組織環(huán)保志愿者聯(lián)盟認為外賣平臺讓取消捆綁銷售變得困難（大的外賣公司不承認這點）今年九月北京的一個法庭同意針就外賣平臺是否違反消費者權(quán)益進行調(diào)查。

There would be much less reason to worry about the mountains of waste if households and local governments did a better job of keeping recyclables separate from gunk. This year the central government ordered 46 cities to come up with new systems for sorting rubbish, which it talks of making mandatory by 2020. That is progress, but only if it is unwavering: over the years officials have found several similar campaigns all too easy to throw out.

如果每家每戶和政府都能做好垃圾分類就不會有垃圾成山的擔心。今年中央政府令46個城市施行新的垃圾分類措施，到2020年前強制執(zhí)行。對于中國來說是進步，但前提是政策落地。要知道在過去的幾年里也頒布類似的政令推出但也都無疾而終。

原文 https://www.economist.com/news/china/21730427-wooden-chopsticks-and-plastic-boxes-threaten-environment-chinas-food-delivery-business