Building a House With Diapers用紙尿布建造房屋

A group of scientists has come upwith an unusual way to solve a messyproblem. They’ve taken dirty diapers， andused them to replace some of the sandneeded to build a house with concrete2.

Concrete is one of the most commonbuilding materials in the world. It’s usedto construct3 many things， includingroads， sidewalks， and buildings. Concreteis usually made by mixing together sand，water， and cement4.

But making concrete creates a lot ofpollution. And it uses a lot of sand. Mining5 for sand creates other problemsfor the environment.

A scientist had an unusual idea.What if some of the sand in concretecould be replaced with used disposable6diapers？

Diapers are a huge source ofpollution. In the US alone， over 3.6billion kilograms of them are thrownaway each year. These end up taking upspace in landfills7.

一組科學家想出了一個不同尋常的方法來解決一個棘手的問題。他們拿了臟紙尿布，用它們代替了用混凝土建造房子所需的一些沙子。

混凝土是世界上最常見的建筑材料之一。它被用來建造許多東西，包括馬路、人行道和建筑物。混凝土通常由沙子、水和水泥混合而成。

但是制造混凝土會造成大量污染。而且它會使用很多沙子。開采沙子會給環境帶來其他問題。

一位科學家有個不同尋常的想法。如果混凝土中的一些沙子可以用用過的一次性紙尿布代替呢？

紙尿布是一個巨大的污染源。僅在美國，每年就有超過36 億公斤的尿布被丟棄。這些最終占據了垃圾填埋場的空間。

So the scientist and her team setout to study the problem. They collectedused diapers， cleaned them up， andtreated the diapers to get rid of any badgerms8. Then the diapers were dried andcut into small pieces that could beadded to concrete.

The researchers tested out theiridea by making different mixes ofconcrete with different amounts of shredded9 diapers. They found that thisnew kind of concrete was just as safeand strong as regular concrete. It alsodidn’t have any harmful germs in it.

Overall， the scientists say thatdiapers could replace up to 8% of thesand used in the concrete needed to builda house. In the parts of a house thatsupport a lot of weight， 10% of the sandcould be replaced with shredded diapers.In areas that don’t have to support muchweight， as much as 40% of the sand couldbe replaced with diapers.

The scientists didn’t just test thestrength of the concrete. They actuallybuilt a small concrete house to testtheir ideas.

The researchers think their ideacould make it less expensive to buildhomes. After all， sand needs to be mined，which costs money. Used diapers arebasically free.

因此，這位科學家和她的團隊著手研究這個問題。他們收集用過的紙尿布，把它們清理干凈，并對紙尿布進行處理，以去除任何有害細菌。然后，他們將紙尿布烘干，切成小塊，加入混凝土中。

研究人員通過用不同數量的碎紙尿片制作不同的混凝土混合物來測試他們的想法。他們發現這種新型混凝土和普通混凝土一樣安全和堅固。它里面也沒有任何有害的細菌。

總的來說，科學家們表示，紙尿布可以取代建造房屋所需混凝土中多達8%的沙子。在房子里承受較大重量的部分，10%的沙子可以用切碎的紙尿布代替。在不需要支撐太大重量的地方，多達40%的沙子可以被換成切碎的紙尿布。

科學家們不僅僅測試了混凝土的強度。他們實際上還建造了一座小型混凝土房屋來測試他們的點子。……