相传曾经有位老奶奶,有一天闲来无事清理冰箱存货,在冷冻室的最里面翻出来一只不知道藏了多久的火鸡,老奶奶给生产厂家打电话,问这火鸡还能不能吃,厂家回话说:“您可千万别吃了,快扔了吧!”你猜老奶奶怎么说?她老人家坚定地说:“这么好的火鸡,我可舍不得扔,我拿去捐给灾区的人们好了。”……这就是本文要论述的问题。
SWEDOW (Stuff WE DOn't Want) refers to unnecessary or inappropriate items donated to a charity organization or relief effort.
SWEDOW(“我们不需要的物品”英文表达的缩写形式)指慈善或救灾组织收到的不必要的或者不合时宜的捐助物品。
In Indonesia, 4,000 tonnes of donated drugs arrived after the tsunami, well beyond local needs. Most of those drugs weren't required, were labelled in foreign languages or were close to expiry. They overwhelmed the capacity of local incinerators to dispose of them. The problem is known by the acronym SWEDOW.
印尼海啸之后,有4000吨捐助的药品抵达当地,大大超出了当地的需求量。这些药品中的大多数要么不是灾区当时需要的,要么是用外语标注使用说明的,要么就是快过期的。为了销毁这些药品,当地垃圾焚化炉甚至都超负荷运转。这样的问题就叫做SWEDOW。
The latest SWEDOW dump came in the form of a massive donation from the National Football League to the Christian relief group World Vision. After the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl, the NFL was stuck with thousands of T-shirts heralding the Pittsburgh Steelers as champs. The league donated the merchandise to World Vision, which in turn plans to ship it to Armenia, Nicaragua, Romania and Zambia.
最近的一次SWEDOW事件与美国国家橄榄球联盟(NFL)给世界宣明会新西兰基督城救灾小组的大宗捐赠物品有关。绿湾包装工队赢得超级碗冠军后,NFL手里就积压了大量宣传匹兹堡钢人队得冠军的T恤。他们把这些T恤捐给了世界宣明会,结果,后者只能把T恤运去亚美尼亚、尼加拉瓜、罗马尼亚和赞比亚等国家。