1 . Before 2019, an estimated 500 million plastic straws (吸管) were used in the U.S. alone every single day, according to the National Geographic. Since then, they have been banned in numerous states, encouraging many businesses to offer paper alternatives in an attempt to cut plastic waste.

But, according to a new study, published in the journal Food Additives and Contaminants, these straws come with their own problems.

“Straws made from plant-based materials, such as paper and bamboo, are often advertised as being more sustainable and eco-friendly than those made from plastic,” Thimo Groffen, an environmental scientist at the University of Antwerp in Belgium who is involved in the study, said in a statement. “However, the presence of PFAS (全氟和多氟烷基物质) in these straws means that’s not necessarily true.” After analyzing 39 different brands, Groffen and his team found that paper straws were more likely to contain toxic-forever chemicals than those using other materials.

These forever chemicals, known as PFAS, can be found in a range of everyday products. And they can lead to increased blood cholesterol and blood pressure, reduced immunity and an increased risk of certain cancers. Not only are these chemicals dangerous to human health, but they can build up in the environment too.

Of the brands tested, 90 percent of paper straws contained these chemicals, compared to 75 percent made of plastic and 40 percent of glass. They were not detected in any of the steel straws investigated.

The study did not test whether the PFAS could leach out into (浸入) the surrounding liquid so further tests are needed to determine the full impact of these products. While more work is needed, the study has highlighted that paper and bamboo straws are perhaps not as “clean” as they claim to be.

3 . Disney announced Tuesday that it has partnered with Impossible Foods to serve plant-based hamburgers at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Impossible Foods makes hamburgers that taste like meat but are made from plants instead of ______ . They’re popular with customers who are ______ meat to protect animals and the environment. This agreement with Disney is a big step toward that ______ .

The plant-based product isn’t just another kind of ______ hamburgers on the menu. Supporters argue that they could ______ most of the problems related to animal meat. All around the world, many people like the taste of meat and demand for meat products keeps ______ . But traditional hamburgers involve (涉及) animal cruelty and public health problems, and ______ a lot of greenhouse gases.

Now plant-based hamburgers run to the ______ ! They don’t involve raising animals on factory farms. And a(n) ______ of the plant-based hamburger shows that it has a smaller carbon footprint. It also uses 87% less water and 96% less land. That’s a huge ______ .

That’s why Americans have been increasingly interested in meat replacements that don’t require them to ______ what they love about meat: the flavor and taste. The teams behind the plant-based meat products work to ______ their products have the flavor and cooking experience of meat.

“Our ______ have warmly welcomed our plant-based products at Disneyland. We are ______ to expand our menu,” Disney wrote in the announcement. “With the Impossible partnership, we are expanding our menu further to give even more visitors the ______ to get a taste of plant-based foods.”

4 . Want to help fight global warming? Take off your tie, says the Italian health ministry. It has urged employers to let their staff dress casually at work in the summer so that the air conditioning can be turned down.

“Taking your tie off immediately lowers the body temperature by 2 or 3 degrees centigrade,” the ministry said in a statement. “Allowing a more sensible use of air conditioning brings about electricity savings and protects the environment.”

It called on all public and private offices to let employees wear no tie during heatwaves like the one that has brought Africa-like temperatures to many parts of Italy this week.

The move reacts to a similar action from Italy’s biggest oil group, ENI, which told its staff earlier this month they need not wear a tie at work. The tie makers, however, were left hot under the collar.

“Italy confirms (证实) that it is a strange country,” Flavio Cima said angrily in a letter to financial daily IL Sole~24ORE under the headline: “I, tie maker, am responsible for global warming.”

“We can now happily continue with our lifestyle, using cars, consuming fuel, heating and cooling our homes at leisure. On one condition: we should not wear a tie while we do so,” he wrote.

“I should have listened to my friends and become an oil producer instead.”

Italy is one of the European Union’s worst performers on the pollution front and is among the EU countries expected to exceed (超出) their greenhouse gas emission (排放) targets.

5 . Depleted forests are never out of the headlines, but do you know that several tech-led techniques are being employed to improve reforestation and bring these lungs of nature, a key source of oxygen in the atmosphere, back to life? Nature news website, Mongabay, recently devoted a mini-series to exploring the newest technological solutions that support worldwide reforestation efforts, but not without pointing out that reforestation efforts often have weaknesses.

This Mongabay review speaks frankly about the blemishes of labor-intensive reforestation efforts as poor planning leads to underreported tree planting outcomes. For example, perhaps trees were planted where they didn’t suit the chosen habitats.

According to Mongabay, the challenge is to match rising demand for restoration with ecologically sound, scalable (可扩展的) reforestation methods. “Scale is the biggest challenge to restoration and reforestation projects worldwide,” said Charlotte Mills, chief ecologist at AirSeed Technologies in Australia. The good news is that new tech solutions can help make tree planting at scale easier, faster and more successful.

For instance, solar-powered, seed-planting robots, able to plant up to 600 trees in a morning, are being carried out by conservationists working in the Peruvian Amazon. Drones (无人机) are employed to drop seeds in precise areas, especially at remote and difficult-to-access sites. One company operating them is Mast Reforestation, a Seattle-based one working on North America’s conifer (针叶树) forests destroyed by logging, insects and wildfire.

The Globe and Mail reports on how Canadian start-up, Flash Forest, uses drones that fire seeds at a high speed into the soil. It has a great goal to go beyond changing forestry to slow down climate change and finally conserve ecological diversity.

Sending people out on field monitoring to assess the health of new trees which take years to mature is time-consuming and costly. Here, satellites are stepping up to provide large-scale data sets over time on how huge reforested sites are going. Food giant Nestle announced in April 2023 that it’s working to monitor its reforestation efforts long-term using satellites.

10 . Plant a tree!

What’s causing global warming? Is it man-made? Or are temperatures simply changing naturally? Whatever the case, we can at least try to slow things down. But how?

The Wilderness Project has an idea.     1    . If the earth has more trees, greenhouse gases will be reduced, and this will help stop global warming.     2     and improve air quality.

    3    . In Belgium, the Organization for Forests worked with farmers to help them plant more trees. In Spain, the Canopy Project plants one tree for every Spaniard (西班牙人) in order to improve the environment. In Germany, a teenager named Felix Finkbine has been leading a global movement to plant more trees.     4    .

Now, lots of people all over the world have already been planting more trees. In fact, if everyone plants one tree, just one, it will do great good to our environment.

So, what can you do to help?     5    , although you need to get advice on how to look after it. Or you can join a tree planting project such as the ones mentioned above to help save the earth.

So, go on, plant a tree…and save the earth!