【推荐1】When it comes to becoming eco-conscious, many people choose to start with something simple: recycling. But it’s not as simple as everyone seems to believe.

Indeed, the desire for some people to recycle can lead to ill-informed decisions about what can and cannot be recycled, and non-recyclable objects are accidentally put into the recycling bin. The practice is what is known as wishcycling.

Wishcycling boils down to the idea that just about anything can be recycled, and that if you put it into a recycling bin, those who are responsible for it will find a way to recycle it. This is obviously not true, because, despite everything that you’ve been told by the media, not everything is recyclable.

Small non-recyclable objects that are attached to recyclables are generally acceptable. For example, glue and tape attached to paper will be removed in the recycling process without any trouble. But improperly recycling broken eyeglasses, plastic shopping bags, food waste and greasy(油渍)pizza boxes could cause problems to the recycling process.

The objects in the recycling bin are typically sorted by machines at recycling centers, not people. These complex machines are designed to separate plastics, paper, and other recyclables. If something is thrown into the bin that shouldn’t be there, it could end up damaging the machine, which means the recycling center could lose time and money every time people decide to wishcycle. Sometimes, a non-recyclable object is able to sneak(溜)past these sorting machines. If this happens, the non-recyclable object ends up in a load of recyclables that will be sold for the recycling center to make a profit. However, having just one non-recyclable thing mixed in can pollute the entire load of recyclables, which has to be thrown away.

So what you as a consumer need to do is make your own recycling practice most functional. The best way is to educate yourself. There are certain general rules when it comes to recycling that everyone should know.

【推荐3】Finding low-cost sustainable building materials is important for the environment and in providing access to affordable housing. Researchers have created a composite (复合的) building material by replacing sand in building materials with a common, non-degradable (不可降解的) waste product: used disposable diapers (一次性尿布).

Driven by a desire to solve Indonesia’s significant population growth and demand for low-cost housing, researchers looked for a way of maintaining the benefits of building materials but making it more environmentally friendly and cheaper to produce. Building material samples containing different proportions (比例) of disposable diaper waste were tested. Then the researchers calculated the maximum amount of sand that could be replaced with diaper waste, finding that up to 8% of the sand could be replaced to safely construct a house with 36 square meters. 10% of the sand could be replaced in a three-story house and 27% in a single- story house. In terms of the materials used to create partition walls (隔断墙), the researchers said they could replace up to 40% of sand.

“This research has concluded that adding used diapers to building materials does not significantly weaken its strength, ” the team stated. “It proves using diapers to create composite materials is feasible, particularly concerning the development of environmentally friendly and cost-effective materials. ”

Indonesia is ranked sixth globally for disposable diaper usage. Many used diapers are thrown away in the country’s rivers and waterways, causing pollution. In 2019, the total waste in Indonesia was 29. 21 million tons. This figure rose to 32. 76 million tons in 2020.

However, the researchers know the current limitations of using waste diapers as a construction material. For one thing, it would require engagement with waste treatment facilities to collect used diapers from households and deal with them. Secondly, machines that cut up the used diapers would be needed on a large scale.

Nonetheless, the research highlights the potential for using non-degradable waste, addressing sustainability issues and providing low-cost housing.

【推荐2】California's August Complex Fire tore through more than 1,600 square miles of forest last summer, burning nearly every tree in its path. It was the largest wildfire in the state's recorded history, breaking the record previously set in 2018. After the fire, land managers must determine where to most efficiently plant new trees.

A predictive mapping model called the Postfire Spatial Conifer Restoration Planning Tool recently described in Ecological Applications could inform these decisions, saving time and expense. The tool can “show where young trees are needed most, where the forest isn't going to come back on its own, where we need to intervene （干预）if we want to maintain forests,"   says lead author Joseph Stewart, an ecologist at the University of California, Davis.

To develop the model, Stewart and his colleagues classified data collected from more than 1,200 study plots in 19 areas that burned between 2004 and 2012. They combined these data with information on rainfall, geography, climate, forest composition and bum severity. They also included how many seeds sample conifer trees （针叶树）produced in 216 locations over 18 years, assessing whether the trees release different numbers of seeds after a fire.

The tool's potential benefits are significant, says Kimberley Davis, a conservation scientist at the University of Montana, who was not involved in the study. Those managers will still have to make hard decisions, such as which species to plant in areas that may experience warmer and drier conditions resulting from climate change, but the model provides some research-based guidance to help the forests recover.