以扎克伯格的垃圾桶為生

SAN FRANCISCO — Three blocks from Mark Zuckerberg’s $10 million Tudor home in San Francisco, Jake Orta lives in a small, single-window studio apartment filled with trash.

舊金山——在距離馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)的1000萬美元都鐸式大宅三個(gè)街區(qū)遠(yuǎn)的地方，杰克·奧爾塔(Jake Orta)住在一個(gè)只有一扇窗戶的單間小公寓里，里面全是垃圾。

There’s a child’s pink bicycle helmet that Orta dug out from the garbage bin across the street from Zuckerberg’s house. And a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, a coffee machine — all in working condition — and a pile of clothes that he carried home in a Whole Foods paper bag retrieved from Zuckerberg’s bin.

垃圾里有一個(gè)粉色的兒童自行車頭盔，那是他從扎克伯格家對(duì)面的垃圾桶里撿到的。還有一臺(tái)吸塵器、一個(gè)吹風(fēng)機(jī)、一個(gè)咖啡機(jī)——都還能用，還有一堆衣服，他用從扎克伯格的垃圾桶翻出來的一個(gè)全食超市的紙袋，把那些衣服帶回家。

A military veteran who fell into homelessness and now lives in government-subsidized housing, Orta is a full-time trash picker, part of an underground economy in San Francisco of people who work the sidewalks in front of multimillion-dollar homes, rummaging for things they can sell.

奧爾塔是一名無家可歸的退伍軍人，目前住在政府補(bǔ)貼的房子里，他是一名全職的拾荒者，是舊金山地下經(jīng)濟(jì)的一部分，他們?cè)诎偃f豪宅前的人行道上工作，翻尋著可以出售的東西。

Trash picking is a profession more often associated with shantytowns and favelas than a city at the doorstep of Silicon Valley. The Global Alliance of Waste Pickers, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, counts more than 400 trash picking organizations across the globe, almost all of them in Latin America, Africa and southern Asia.

作為一種職業(yè)，撿垃圾通常是與棚戶區(qū)和貧民窟聯(lián)系在一起的，而不是一座位于硅谷的城市。非盈利研究和倡導(dǎo)組織全球拾荒者聯(lián)盟(Global Alliance of Waste Pickers)由全球400多個(gè)拾荒者組織構(gòu)成，它們幾乎都位于拉丁美洲、非洲和南亞。

But trash scavengers exist in many U.S. cities and, like the rampant homelessness in San Francisco, are a signpost of the extremes of U.S. capitalism. A snapshot from 2019: One of the world’s richest men and a trash picker, living a few minutes’ walk from each other.

但美國許多城市都有拾荒者的身影，這與舊金山無家可歸者無處不在的現(xiàn)象一樣，是美國資本主義的極端路標(biāo)。這是2019年的一張快照：一個(gè)是世界上最富有的人之一，一個(gè)是拾荒者，他們的住處距離對(duì)方只有幾分鐘的步行距離。

Orta, 56, sees himself as more of a treasure hunter.

56歲的奧爾塔認(rèn)為自己更像是一個(gè)尋寶者。

“It just amazes me what people throw away,” he said one night, as he found a pair of gently used designer jeans, a new black cotton jacket, gray Nike running sneakers and a bicycle pump. “You never know what you will find.”

“讓我驚訝的是人們什么都扔，”他說，有天晚上他發(fā)現(xiàn)了一條看上去沒怎么穿過的名牌牛仔褲、一件新的黑色棉外套、灰色的耐克跑鞋和一個(gè)自行車打氣筒。“你永遠(yuǎn)不知道會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)什么。”

Orta says his goal is to earn about $30 to $40 a day from his discoveries, a survival income of about $300 a week.

奧爾塔說，他的目標(biāo)是每天從收獲中得到約30～40美元的收入，每周大約要300美元才能維持生活。

Trash picking is illegal in California — once a bin is rolled out onto the sidewalk the contents are considered the possession of the trash collection company, according to Robert Reed, spokesman for Recology, the company contracted to collect San Francisco’s garbage. But the law is rarely enforced.

在加州，拾荒是違法行為——根據(jù)承包舊金山垃圾收集的公司Recology的發(fā)言人羅伯特·里德(Robert Reed)的說法，垃圾桶一旦推到了人行道上，里面的東西就被視為垃圾收集公司的財(cái)產(chǎn)。但這條法律很少執(zhí)行。

Orta was born in San Antonio, Texas, one of 12 children. He spent more than a dozen years in the Air Force, loading aircraft during the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and was dispatched to Germany, Korea and Saudi Arabia. By the time he returned to the United States, his wife had left him, and he struggled with alcoholism and homelessness. He moved to San Francisco, and five years ago qualified for a program assisting chronically homeless veterans.

奧爾塔出生于得克薩斯州的圣安東尼奧，有12個(gè)兄弟姐妹。他在空軍待了十幾年，在1991年的波斯灣戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)期間從事飛機(jī)的裝載工作，還被派遣到德國、韓國和沙特阿拉伯。當(dāng)他回到美國時(shí)，妻子離他而去，他陷入了酗酒和無家可歸的狀態(tài)。后來他搬到舊金山，五年前得以加入一個(gè)長期無家可歸老兵援助項(xiàng)目。

On the six times Orta went out with a reporter, he followed a variety of circuits, but usually ended up exploring his favorite alleys and a dumpster that has been bountiful. (The first rule of dumpster scavenging, he said, is to make sure there’s no raccoon or possum in there.) In March, the dumpster yielded a box of silver goblets, dishes and plates, as if someone had yanked a tablecloth from underneath a feast in some European château.

一名記者和他一起出去過六次，他會(huì)一路左拐右繞，但最后還是來到他最喜歡的那幾條小巷和一個(gè)不會(huì)讓人空手而歸的垃圾箱。(他說，翻垃圾箱的首要規(guī)則是確保里面沒有浣熊或負(fù)鼠。)三月的時(shí)候，他從垃圾箱里撿到了一箱銀質(zhì)高腳杯和各種盤子碟子，仿佛有人在某個(gè)歐洲城堡舉行的盛宴上扯動(dòng)了桌布。

“How do you say it?” William Washington, one of Orta’s trash-picking colleagues, remarked one night. “One’s man trash is another man’s treasure.”

“怎么說呢?”一天晚上，奧爾塔的拾荒同行威廉·華盛頓(William Washington)說。“一個(gè)人的垃圾是另一個(gè)人的財(cái)富。”

Orta’s other recent discoveries: phones, iPads, three wristwatches and bags of marijuana. (“I smoked it,” he said when asked how much he got for the pot.) In late August or September, as participants return from the annual Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, Orta said he often finds abandoned bicycles covered in fine sand.

奧爾塔最近的其他發(fā)現(xiàn)包括手機(jī)、iPad、三塊手表和幾袋大麻。(“被我抽了，”當(dāng)被問及大麻賣了多少錢時(shí)，他說。)8月底或9月是去往內(nèi)華達(dá)州沙漠參加年度火人節(jié)的人們回來的時(shí)候，奧爾托說，那陣子他經(jīng)常可以發(fā)現(xiàn)覆滿細(xì)沙的廢棄自行車。

Orta said he only takes what people have clearly thrown away, although 14 years ago he spent a few months in jail for breaking into someone’s garage in Sacramento and trying to steal a wrench for his bicycle. “It was a dumb mistake,” he said.

奧爾塔說，他只拿走顯然是被扔掉的東西，盡管14年前，他在薩克拉門托曾經(jīng)闖入某人的車庫，想偷個(gè)扳手修理自己的自行車，因此入獄幾個(gè)月。“那是個(gè)愚蠢的錯(cuò)誤，”他說。

Trash pickers fall into several broad categories. For decades, elderly women and men have collected cardboard, paper, cans or bottles, lugging impossibly large bags around the city and bringing them to recycling centers for cash.

拾荒者可以分為幾大類。幾十年來，上年紀(jì)的男女一直吃力地拖著極大的袋子在城市里到處收集紙板、紙、罐頭和瓶子，把它們帶到回收中心兌換現(xiàn)金。

The city is most concerned about the battered pickup trucks, known as mosquito fleets, that buzz around San Francisco collecting recyclables on an industrial scale, depriving Recology, and ultimately the city, of income, said Bill Barnes, spokesman for the city administrator’s office.

舊金山市政府發(fā)言人比爾·巴恩斯(Bill Barnes)說，該市最擔(dān)心的是那些破舊的皮卡車，它們被稱為“蚊子車隊(duì)”，在舊金山開來開去，進(jìn)行工業(yè)規(guī)模的可回收物品收集，減少了Recology的收入，最終也減少該市的收入。

“That’s a significant challenge for residents because it results in higher garbage rates,” Barnes said.

“這對(duì)居民來說是一個(gè)重大挑戰(zhàn)，因?yàn)檫@會(huì)導(dǎo)致更高的垃圾處理費(fèi)，”巴恩斯說。

Trash pickers like Orta are in yet another category, targeting items in the black landfill garbage bins whose contents would otherwise go to what’s known as the pit — a hole in the ground on the outskirts of the city that resembles a giant swimming pool, where nonrecyclable trash is crushed and compacted by a huge bulldozer and then carried by a fleet of trucks to a dump an hour and a half away. The city exports about 50 large truckloads a day.

像奧爾塔這樣的拾荒者屬于另一類，他們的目標(biāo)是那些黑色的填埋垃圾桶，如果沒有他們，桶里的東西就會(huì)被全部進(jìn)入垃圾坑——那是在城市郊區(qū)地上挖出的洞，就像一個(gè)巨大的游泳池。不可回收的垃圾被巨大的推土機(jī)碾壓并夯實(shí)，然后由一隊(duì)卡車?yán)揭粋€(gè)半小時(shí)車程外的垃圾場(chǎng)。該市每天運(yùn)出50輛大型卡車的垃圾。

Orta sells what he retrieves at impromptu markets on Mission Street or at a more formal market on Saturdays on Julian Avenue. Children’s toys very rarely sell — parents don’t like the idea that they have come from the trash. Women’s clothing is iffy. But men don’t seem to care as much where the clothing came from, and jeans are easy to hawk for $5 or $10 a pair.

奧爾塔會(huì)在米慎街的臨時(shí)市場(chǎng)或朱利安大道一個(gè)更正式的周六市場(chǎng)上出售他收集到的東西。兒童玩具很少能賣出去——父母?jìng)儾幌矚g來自垃圾的玩具。女裝令人起疑。但男性似乎不太在意這些衣服是從什么地方來的，牛仔褲很容易以每條五美元或10美元的價(jià)格成交。

In the blue recycling bin marked with Zuckerberg’s address, there were A&W diet root beer cans, cardboard boxes and a junk mail credit card offer. In the black landfill bin were remnants of a chicken dinner, a stale baguette and Chinese takeout containers.

在標(biāo)有扎克伯格地址的藍(lán)色回收箱里，有A&W無糖根啤罐、紙板箱和一封信用卡垃圾郵件廣告。在黑色的填埋垃圾桶里，有一頓雞肉晚餐的殘余物，一個(gè)不新鮮的長棍面包和中餐外賣盒。

Orta pulled apart a garbage bag in the black bin.

奧爾塔從黑色垃圾桶里拿出一個(gè)垃圾袋，打開來看。

“Just junk — nothing in there.”

“就是垃圾——里面什么都沒有。”