【按】本文选自10月21日《经济学人》，分析了如今中国如火如荼发展的外卖行业。读完后你将了解：

• 中国网络订餐的市场有多火？
• 网络订餐的流行带来的问题及原因是什么？

建议阅读时间10-15分钟。

本文食用方法——建议阅读三遍：
第一遍速读，不看注释和翻译，直接阅读原文，遇见生词（大部分已经标粗）猜一下意思或者跳过，不要因为停下了查词而影响了阅读的流畅性。
第二遍精读，不认识的词看段后注释和解析，建议多看英文释义（这样才能理解得更全面、准确同时能锻炼阅读能力），对照中文翻译看看自己是否有理解错误的地方。
第三遍通读，整体再回顾一遍，在上下文语境中复习刚刚认识的词汇和表达。
有问题欢迎留言讨论~

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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

1. 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.

couriers：A courier is a person who is paid to take letters and parcels direct from one place to another.
clad: If you are clad in particular clothes, you are wearing them. =DRESSED , clothed, wearing
fuel: To fuel a situation means to make it become worse or more intense. 加剧
e.g. The result will inevitably fuel speculation about the Prime Minister's future...这一结果将不可避免地加剧人们对首相未来的揣测。

1. 三名快递员挤在北京的一间办公室的电梯里, 一个穿着红色衣服, 一个黄色, 一个蓝色。这三人正在派送通过中国最受欢迎的订餐公司网购的食品, 这些公司每天中午都会派遣骑电动自行车的五颜六色的送餐员来填满城市的道路。低至三元 (合0.46 美元)的运费已经帮助改变了城市的午餐时间。但蓬勃发展的业务也加剧了人们对从废弃物到滥用员工的每件事的担忧。

2. 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.

a swathe of: a large strip or area of sth
e.g. The mountains rose above a swathe of thick cloud.
on a tear: informal having great success over a period of time
e.g. The team has been on a tear in recent weeks. [=has been playing very well, has been winning a lot of games]
duel: a formal fight with weapons between two people, used in the past to settle a disagreement, especially over a matter of honour 决斗、
e.g. to fight / win a duel 进行 / 赢得决斗
e.g. to challenge sb to a duel 向某人挑战要求决斗
duel可以作动词，例如：
The two men duelled to the death. 两个男人双双在决斗中丧命。

2. 这类服务——用户可以在一个网站上从一大片当地餐馆中订餐——正在全世界发展。但在中国, 这个行业却已大获成功。据政府分析师称, 到6月底, 注册用户的数量已升至 2.95亿, 比去年年底增加了40%。一家研究公司 iiMedia 说, 2016年在网上购买的食物价值约为250亿美元, 到明年年底可能上升到360亿美元左右。市场领导者是“美团”和“饿了么”。这两家公司在食品配送方面仍有亏损, 但他们各自有腾讯和阿里巴巴的支持——科技巨头渴望找到方法将客户推向他们在决斗中的在线支付系统。

3. 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.

take off: (产品、活动、事业等)腾飞，突然成功 If something such as a product, an activity, or someone's career takes off, it suddenly becomes very successful.
hand-wringing: worried talk or behavior
e.g. There has been a lot of silly hand-wringing over the latest hike in interest rates.
mount: to go up sth, or up on to sth that is raised 登上；爬上；攀登 = ascend ：
e.g. She slowly mounted the steps. 她慢慢地爬上台阶。
e.g. He mounted the platform and addressed the crowd. 他登上讲台对人群发表演说。

3. 这些企业首先是从学生宿舍中开始突然成功的。如今, 年轻的办公室白领是目前最大的市场。但是人们对它们普及的后果还是有很多担忧。官员说, 快递员威胁着道路安全。他们骑的电动车便宜、无需驾照，而且在北京这样限制摩托车的城市很方便。送货人员通常会在午餐高峰时登上人行道或逆车流行驶, 以使收入最大化。上个月, 南京的官员说, 在今年的前六月, 这座东部城市的3000多起事故都与运餐车有关。在上海的一个区, 警方引入了一个惩罚分数系统。他们命令那些达到一定分数的人进行社区服务。警察可以要求快递的雇主解雇他们。

4. 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.

have it: to find oneself in certain (good or bad) circumstances:
e.g. You'll never have it so good.
stage: If you stage an event or ceremony, you organize it and usually take part in it. 组织、参加（活动或仪式）
subcontractor: A subcontractor is a person or firm that has a contract to do part of a job which another firm is responsible for. 分包人;分包公司
en route: on the way; while travelling from / to a particular place 在途中；在路上

4）另一个担忧是送餐员的福利, 其中许多人是来自农村的移民。在一些方面, 他们比其他类型的快递更容易: 食品盒比笨重的包裹更容易处理, 而且收件人总是会在。但香港的一个非政府组织《中国劳工公报》称, 送餐员已经就雇主 (通常是分包商) 给的糟糕待遇(包括迟发工资)举行了越来越多的抗议活动。将他们的薪酬与客户的评级挂钩也使得客户容易对他们有更高的要求: 例如, 在前往他们目的地的途中购买食品杂货, 或扔家里的垃圾。

5. 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.

bundle: to supply extra equipment, especially software when selling a new computer, at no extra cost 额外免费提供(设备等)；(尤指出售计算机时)赠送软件：
e.g. A further four applications are bundled with the system. 该系统免费附送九套应用软件。

5. 近期最激烈的争论是企业对环境的影响。据估计，每天有大约6500万个饭盒被弃。活动家们反对那些多余的 刀叉餐具、餐巾纸和筷子, 网络平台上的餐馆习惯性把它们和其他东西捆绑销售。一个中国非政府组织“重庆绿色志愿者联盟”表示, 食品配送网站并没有让顾客拒绝这些闲杂物品变得足够简单 (大公司则否认这一点)。今年9月, 北京一家法院同意审查它们是否侵犯了消费者的权利。

6. 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.

talk of: to speak or write about (someone or something) : to mention (a subject) in speech or writing
unwavering: If you describe a feeling or attitude as unwavering, you mean that it is strong and firm and does not weaken.
unwavering常搭配的名词有：belief, commitment, confidence, dedication, faith, loyalty, support

6. 如果家庭和地方政府能更好地将可回收的垃圾与黏糊糊的东西（指不可回收的垃圾）分开的话, 就没有太多的理由去担心堆积如山的废物。今年, 中央政府下令46个城市制定新的垃圾分类体制, 并提出在2020年之前使其变得具有强制性。这是进步, 但只有当它是坚定不移的（时候）: 多年来, 官员们发现, 一些类似的运动都很容易被抛弃。

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原文出处：经济学人

翻译：七呵夫

本译文仅供个人研习、欣赏语言之用，谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。本译文不代表本人立场。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。