【推荐1】David Katz was unhappy about all the plastic (塑料) going into the ocean. To help solve the problem, he had an unusual idea. Mr Katz calls his idea the “Plastic Bank”.

In poor countries, people are already working so hard just to get enough food to eat, to find a place to live, and to keep themselves healthy. Spending time on recycling (回收再利用) doesn’t make sense when you’re simply trying to survive.

The purpose of the Plastic Bank is to use plastic to help these people solve the problems that worry them the most—food, shelter, and health. So Plastic Bank adds a value to plastic waste by paying people to recycle it.

The program began in 2015 in Haiti, a poor island nation that doesn’t have strong programs for recycling. Plastic is often simply thrown out and ends up in rivers and the ocean.

The Plastic Bank has opened 30 “markets” in Haiti. At Plastic Bank markets, people can trade the plastic they’ve collected for money or other things they need. The Plastic Bank markets sell many things that local people need, such as cooking oil and heating oil. The stores also allow plastic collectors to use the money they get to pay for health care or school. For those who have cell phones, Plastic Bank can put the money they get into a special bank account (账户) that they can control using an app. This keeps their money safe.

To make sure the plastic gets recycled, the Plastic Bank works with those who agree to use the plastic that is collected. For example, the British company Marks & Spencer and the German company Henkel are both paying more to use recycled plastic from the Plastic Bank in their products. When customers buy these products, which are labeled (标记) “Social Plastic”, they know that they are helping people in other parts of the world and keeping plastic out of the ocean.

The Plastic Bank has programs in Haiti, the Philippines, and Brazil. So far, the Plastic Bank has kept about 7 million pounds of plastic out of the ocean.

【推荐2】Once the red wolf’s historic range stretched from Long Island to Missouri and down to the Texas-Mexico border. But by 1972 their population was reduced to a small area along the Gulf coast due to habitat loss and hunting.

To conserve the species, 14 individuals were caught as part of a reproducing program. In 1980 their wild relatives were declared extinct — the caught wolves were all that was left and thus lots of genetic variation was lost. You can’t help it when you have so few founders.

Kristin Brzeski is an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University, whose research focuses on the conservation of genetics of wild animal populations. He thought this work had been an underdog scientifically and for conservation, for all wolves decreased in amount dramatically, especially the red wolves. Now, Brzeski and her co-workers have found a surprising new pool of red wolf genes that might help bring more diversity to the tiny population: they found the disappearing genes of red wolves in wild coyote populations. But why did this happen?

Remember: when a population is dying out, it might find the closest related species as their own best mate, so a red wolf and a coyote can have offspring. As a result, people can rediscover their genes in their coyote hybrid offspring. As red wolves are released back into the wild, reproducing with these coyotes could help the critically endangered species regain some of its genetic diversity.

This would be kind of the opposite direction: take the existing small population that still has red wolf genes that are so critical, and put them into a wild landscape with new genetic variation that they haven’t seen for 50 years or more. And all of a sudden, hopefully, this is like a super mix of genetic health and sort of a rebound that these animals can be wild and be themselves again.

The next step will include how to release red wolves in a way that takes advantage of the genes red wolves hiding in coyote populations. There should be a philosophy in our mind that we created this problem, so we should be responsible for fixing it.

【推荐1】From sausage rolls to sweets and a coffee with a bin, there were many things that made Greg Robinson smile.

When the father-of-two, who was in his 50s, died suddenly in April 2021, his family’s life was turned upside down.

Greg ran a gift shop in his hometown of Donaghadce. Whether it was at work, walking the dog, with his local flute band or just out in his belayed town, his family said Greg made time for those in need. Now, on the week of his first anniversary, his family shared some of the things that made him smile with their community.

“We wanted to plan something together that allowed us to put our energy into something positive and give us something practical to do, which we knew would have an impact on others,” they told the reporter.

“We knew that by making others smile, we in turn would feel the benefit of that too. We have realised the importance of little things that have made us smile throughout the past year.”

As Greg loved his town and the community, all the gifts were purchased locally. Among them are vouchers (代金券) for a bakery, for some of his favourite sausage rolls, an ice-cream shop where he used to buy a quarter of sweets, and a cafe because “a wee coffee and a bun would have made dad’s face light up with excitement”.

“When someone dies, it is often the case that people are scared to mention the loved one in case it makes you sad, but the journey has taught us that this isn’t the case. The wonderful memories of dad shared by our community bring so much comfort,” his family said.

“We love those times when we hear how dad had impacted their lives, from showing kindness as a teenager at high school, to chatting away to customers in his shop,” they added.

For Greg’s children, they will be forever grateful for their dad teaching them “to focus on the positive parts of the day, looking for ways that we can express gratitude for everyday things”.

【推荐2】A sweet,coming-of-age film has attracted numbers of audiences,including the judges at the Academy Awards. The movie CODA is shining a light,having won Best Picture of 2021. CODA means Children of Deaf Adults,and is about Ruby, a hearing teenage girl growing up with deaf parents and a deaf brother. As opposed to following her own dreams of becoming a singer,she finds herself mostly at home,being an interpreter for her family.

This is an English language version of the 2014movie La Famille Belier,however,CODA takes this story to a new level. Unlike the French version, which used hearing actors, the writer and director Sian Heder insisted on using deaf actors, a first for Hollywood. The film reveals the hardships and challenges experienced by deaf people who are parenting and working in a hearing world. Using deaf actors who understand this reality and who sign fluently has been a game-changer.

“For too long, the industry has rewarded actors and directors who have exploited the trope(比喻)of faking sympathetic disabilities to win awards for themselves without bringing in deaf people or people with disabilities to ensure authenticity(真实性).”Howard A. Rosenblum, CEO of the National Association of the Deaf said. Such authenticity has earned CODA many distinctions, including multiple awards at the 2021 Sun-dance Festival, as well as three Oscars.

Thanks to CODA, cinema lovers may now be able to better understand and respect a world that has been mostly silenced.“It’s a culture that has been ignored and blocked off from access. I hope that people are going to be exposed to deaf culture through this film,and exposed to American Sign Language who might never have seen a scene before where a deaf family is sitting around a dinner table.”Heder said.

This is a feel-good movie full of emotion,love, and the challenges of life. It has touched the hearts of people across the world,both hearing and deaf, and is uniting all.

【推荐3】An exhibition of 125 life-size elephant sculptures has gone on display in London to highlight the need for coexistence between people and wildlife.

Organized by conservation groups Elephant Family and The Real Elephant Collective, the exhibition comes as a herd of wild Asian elephants roaming Southwest China’s Yunnan Province has drawn global attention. Elephant Family said it would like to see more strategies in place that allow elephants to migrate, eat, and do their best to fit into strange landscapes in a way that is safe for both people and wild animals.

The CoExistence exhibition is on display at Green Park, St James’s Park and Berkeley Square after the sculptures were initially placed outside Buckingham Palace in May. CoExistence is an environmental art exhibition by Elephant Family and The Real Elephant Collective. The elephants have been created deep in the jungles by indigenous (土生土长的) communities who live close to their real-life counterparts. Here, people and elephants coexist in denser (更密集的) populations than anywhere ese in the world.

The founder of The Real Elephant Collective, a nonprofit organization contributing to protecting elephants, said, “Our best guess is that elephants are very intelligent and have learned that humans grow lots of nutritious food. Elephants move over long distances and explore their environment, as their ancestors have always done. Coexistence is about negotiating this sharing of space.”

When many parts of the world went into lockdown to help control the spread of the novel coronavirus, researchers found wildlife thrived (茁壮成长) in the wake of reduced human activity. “A global reduction in human activity has had a positive effect on wildlife around the world,” Elephant Family said. “It has now been scientifically demonstrated that the moment we lighten our footprint, wildlife thrives and transforms the health of the planet for all. The COVID-19 pandemic has showed us that coexistence with wildlife is very much possible.”

After the exhibition, the sculptures will go on sale for between 6, 000 pounds (US $ 8,346) for a calf and 30,000 pounds for a large adult, Money raised will be directed toward some grassroots organizations working on peaceful coexistence.