印度企业家发明可食用的绿色环保包装袋.

　　In 2012, the Mangalore City Corporation banned the manufacture, sale, and distribution of plastic bags. Other Indian cities and provinces have followed suit, and the country as a whole considered a ban back in February of this year.

　　2012 年印度芒格洛尔(印度港市)市地方政府禁止生产、销售及分散塑料袋，此后其他省市纷纷效仿，总之今年二月份印度将禁止使用塑料袋的提议再次提上日程。

　　Which sounds like a good thing (and it is, for the environment), but local entrepreneur Ashwath Hegde knew that not everyone would be able to afford the available alternatives. So he did what anyone would do – he spent four years knee-deep in research and emerged with EnviGreen – a company that produces organic, biodegradable, eco-friendly bags.

　　最起码对环境来说这是件好事，但是当地企业家Ashwath Hegde清楚的知道并不是每个人都能买得起这种新塑料袋。因此他做了每个人都会选择做的事情：花了整整四年的时间研究，并同时与一家生产有机、生物可降解及环保塑料袋的名为EnviGreen的公司产崭露头角。

　　The bags are made from 12 ingredients (like a cake!) – potato, tapioca, corn, starch, vegetable oil, banana, and flower oil, among others – so don’t be fooled even though they look very similar to their plastic predecessors. If you place an EnviGreen bag in a glass of room-temperature water, it will completely dissolve in a day (in boiling water, it will dissolve in just 15 seconds). The bags will biodegrade in less than 180 days, so they can be tossed without worry, and – this is the best part – they’re edible. Which means that if an animal (or marine life) happens to ingest them, they would be perfectly fine.

　　像做蛋糕一样新研究出的袋子由12种成分构成：土豆，木薯粉，玉米，淀粉，植物油，香蕉，花油及其他。所以尽管这种新式袋子和之前的塑料袋很像，但也不要把它们搞混了。把这种袋子放在一杯室温水中，一天时间内它便会完全溶解(如果是沸水的话，15秒钟内就会溶解)，如果是自然降解需要180天。所以即使是随便乱扔也不用担心会污染环境了。最妙之处在于这种袋子还可食用。这意味着如果是动物或海洋生物不小心吃了的话也无大碍。

　　Amazing, no?

　　很神奇，不是吗?

　　But wait. It gets better.

　　但是等等，更精彩的还在后面。

　　Even the process for making these bags is completely chemical free.

　　即便是制作这些袋子时也没有使用任何化学材料。

　　“We don’t use any chemicals at all. Even the paint used for printing on the bags is natural and organic. And the cost of one EnviGreen bag is about 35% more than that of a plastic bag, but 500% less than a cloth bag.”

　　我们不会用一点化学材料，就算是用在袋子上的颜料也是天然有机的。一个EvniGreen袋子的价格大概比一个塑料袋的价格多出35%，但是要低于一个布袋的价格的500%。

　　And he even drank the water that dissolved one of his bags to prove that it’s safe.

　　为了证明这种袋子的安全性，Ashwath Hegde甚至还喝了一杯他溶解过袋子的水。

　　Hegde’s claims are backed up by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, which conducted several tests to ensure the bags contained no plastic bore approving their use. They don’t melt, drop, or release any toxic fumes when burnt, and the results have been verified by both the Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and the Sriram Institute for Industrial Research.

　　Hegde的主张得到了卡纳塔克邦污染控制委员会的支持。他们对这种袋子做了一些测试以确保不含塑料成分，然后才能通过使用。点燃后这种袋子不会熔化，滴落或释放任何有毒气体，该结果已经被中央研究院塑料工程和罗摩工业研究所证实。

　　Hegde has set up a factory in Mangalore City and he plans to source his materials from local farmers. At the moment, the bags are not available in India, but are in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. They will be in India soon and, with cities like Los Angeles already banning plastic bags in the U.S., hopully they’ll make their way across the world soon.

　　Hegde已经在芒格洛尔市建立工厂并打算从当地农民那购得原材料。目前，这种袋子还未在印度投入使用，但是已经在卡塔尔和阿布扎比可见，不久后应该会在印度出现。随着像美国的洛杉矶这样的城市早就禁止了塑料袋，希望新式袋子的使用在不久的将来便能普及世界。