【推荐1】Music festivals are highly popular events during the summer months, attracting thousands of festival-goers who camp on-site. However, the question arises as to whether the tents left behind can be recycled.

While some festival organizers claim that they recycle the tents, the answer is not so straightforward. Every year, thousands of tents are abandoned (拋弃) at festivals, and it’s not just post-festival laziness or poor weather that is to blame. According to a recent survey, many festival-goers leave their tents behind because they believe they will be donated to charities. But unfortunately, this is only wishful thinking.

Matt Wedge, the director of Festival Waste Reclamation & Distribution, says that the number of tents left behind is increasing, estimating that around 20% of the tents at this year’s Leeds Festival were abandoned, which amounted to about 7,000 tents. He adds that Reading and Leicester festivals are usually just as bad but twice as big, meaning that 14,000 tents could have been abandoned there.

In terms of addressing this problem, one popular idea is to employ a tent deposit scheme (保证金计划). Under this scheme, festival-goers would pay a deposit to bring their tent to the festival, which would be returned to them if they take their tent home. “A similar thing happens with litter. Some festivals make attendees pay a £10 ‘eco bond’, which will be returned to them if they fill up a bag of rubbish and hand it in at the end of the festival,” he adds.

The shocking images of abandoned tents are more than just a comment on the environmental impacts of the festival itself. They are in fact a dramatic symbol of our throwaway culture. Just as images of clean fields at Glastonbury represent a refreshing sign of hope for what could be, the ultimate (最后的) message is to make it a habit to take your tent home at least. It’s the best thing people can do.

【推荐2】Common water plant could provide a green energy source. Scientists have figured out how to get large amounts of oil from duckweed, one of nature’s fastest-growing water plants. Transferring such plant oil into biodiesel (生物柴油) for transportation and heating could be a big part of a more sustainable future.

For a new study, researchers genetically engineered duckweed plants to produce seven times more oil per acre than soybeans. John Shanklin, a biochemist says further research could double the engineered duckweed’s oil output in the next few years.

Unlike fossil fuels, which form underground, biofuels can be refreshed faster than they are used. Fuels made from new and used vegetable oils, animal fat and seaweed can have a lower carbon footprint than fossil fuels do, but there has been a recent negative view against them. This is partly because so many crops now go into energy production rather than food; biofuels take up more than 100 million acres of the world’s agricultural land.

Duckweed, common on every continent but Antarctica, is among the world’s most productive plants, and the researchers suggest it could be a game-changing renewable energy source for three key reasons. First, it grows readily in water, so it wouldn’t compete with food crops for agricultural land. Second, duckweed can grow fast in agricultural pollution released into the water. Third, Shanklin and his team found a way to avoid a major biotechnological barrier: For the new study, Shanklin says, the researchers added an oil-producing gene, “turning it on like a light switch”by introducing a particular molecule (分子) only when the plant had finished growing. Shanklin says, “If it replicates (复制) in other species-and there’s no reason to think that it would not — this can solve one of our biggest issues, which is how we can make more oil in more plants without negatively affecting growth.”

To expand production to industrial levels, scientists will need to design and produce large-scale bases for growing engineered plants and obtaining oil — a challenge, Shanklin says, because duckweed is a non-mainstream crop without much existing infrastructure (基础设施).

【推荐2】World’s First Hydrogen-Powered Train Line

Last Wednesday, five hydrogen-powered trains began to make the 100-kilometer trip between Cuxhaven and Buxtehude in Germany. The trains make almost no noise and run without polluting. Germany is planning to replace many of its diesel (柴油) trains with hydrogen trains.

Currently, most trains run on diesel power. When diesel fuel is burned, it creates carbon dioxide and other polluting gases. These gases have helped create the climate crisis. That’s one reason why many countries are trying to find energy choices that pollute less.

Hydrogen is the simplest known element. It’s also very common—74% of the universe is made of hydrogen atoms. Pure hydrogen is a gas that burns easily. Hydrogen can be. used to create electricity by combining it with oxygen in a “fuel cell”. The chemical reaction which takes place creates electricity. A fuel cell is like a battery that never runs down as long as it has hydrogen. The oxygen comes from the air around the train. The best part is that when a fuel cell creates electricity, it doesn’t create pollution. The only thing it gives off is water, which comes out as steam.

There’s a hydrogen station on the line to refuel the trains. But since the trains can go about 1,000 kilometers before they need more fuel, they only need to fill up once a day. The trains can go as fast as 140 kph—about the same as the diesel trains they are replacing.

In many places, hydrogen-powered trains are a smart choice for replacing diesel trains. The city of Frankfurt, Germany has already ordered 27 of the hydrogen-powered trains. Other countries are also interested. France and Italy have ordered several of the hydrogen powered trains. Germany will replace up to 3,000 of its diesel trains with hydrogen- powered trains.