1 . It has now been one year since The Ocean Cleanup made history by cleaning up the first of the plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch(垃圾带). And now, its researchers are turning the waste into designer sunglasses. Not only are the stylish glasses made from the plastic collected, but the earnings go toward helping support the nonprofit so they can continue cleaning up the ocean.

The new glasses are the first product to be created from the recovered ocean waste, but The Ocean Cleanup website says it will not be the last. Back in October 2019,after years of research, The Ocean Cleanup project announced that their System 001/B had successfully collected plastic waste from the garbage patch. The system uses the natural forces of the ocean to gather plastic in the garbage patch, a process that was first brought up by Boyan Slat back in October 2012.

Together with famous designer Yves Behar, and Safilo, The Ocean Cleanup worked to create sunglasses that could produce a feeling or memory of the ocean, reminding people where they came from and what they are protecting. The frames（框架）of the new sunglasses are made from the recovered ocean pollution. Because the joining points have also been specially designed, they can very quickly be taken apart for recycling.

Although the sunglasses cost $199 a pair, all of the money earned from them will be used to fund the nonprofit' s operations. For every pair sold, the organization will be able to clean 24 football-fields-worth of ocean garbage. And since the glasses went on sale earlier last week, supporters have already funded more than 133 , 100 football fields of garbage.

“When every pair is bought up from the first batch（批）of sunglasses, we can then clean 500,000 football fields worth of plastic,” says the website. “That means we can use this garbage to clean more garbage: going full circle, over and over, until we have achieved our purpose of clean oceans.

3 . The world’s first named heat wave hit Seville, Spain, pushing temperatures past 110 degrees Fahrenheit and earning the most severe tier (级别) in the city’s new heat wave ranking system. Heat wave “Zoe” has brought burning temperatures to the southern part of the country for the last few days, particularly the area where Seville is located.

Zoe is the first named heat wave to hit Seville since it officially used a new system last month to name and rank heat waves, similar to hurricanes (Climatewire, June 22). Only the most severe heat waves get names, named this year in reverse (颠倒的) alphabetical order. After Zoe come Yago, Xenia, Wenceslao and Vega. The worst of the heat is expected to begin tapering off (减弱) today, but it has already posed a significant risk to human health.

Seville’s new ranking system takes a three-tiered approach to categorizing heat waves, with Category 1 as the lowest ranking and Category 3 as the most severe. The system has specific criteria for each category, involving not only daytime temperatures, but also nighttime lows, humidity and the heat’s expected effects on human health.

Spain has been struggling with extreme temperatures for much of the summer already. High heat broke local records around the country last month, and the first two weeks of June were the hottest on record in the country. Across the continent, this year was Europe’s second hottest June on record. Extreme heat returned again earlier this month. Cities across Spain broke monthly temperature records and wildfires broke out on the landscape.

Climate change is causing heat waves to become more frequent, more severe and longer-lasting all over the world, increasing the risks to human health. Seville’s new naming and ranking system is intended to raise public awareness about the dangers of extreme heat.

Sagarika Sriram was 10 years old when she started reading newspaper stories. One story was about sharks. They had plastic in their stomachs. Sagarika knew she needed to do something. First, she joined a group. It organized clean-up activities in Dubai. That’s her home city. “The group helps me understand what a person can do and how I can really make a difference.” she says.

Then Sagarika created Kids for a Better World. Its goal is to fight climate (气候) change. It has brought together nearly 10, 000 youths. They come from all over the world. Kids for a Better World is for people aged 8 to 16. It teaches them about what they can do to deal with climate change. They can grow food or plant trees. They can collect recyclables. “This is the information which can help change our future.” Sagarika says.

Dubai is a desert big city. Growing up there has made Sagarika understand the need for action.

Her city faces the risks of rising temperatures and less water supply. She believes young people can bring attention to these environmental challenges.

Sagarika is all about small actions. But she has big plans. She’d like to go to college in California. While she’s there, she’ll continue being an activist. She’ll also be running Kids for a Better World. She hopes to encourage others to fight for a greener planet.

5 . Climate change is a global challenge. One way to fight it is by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. New research shows that trees planted in China have helped in this fight.

A recent study in the journal Nature shows that the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed (吸收) by new forests in two parts of China is more than we thought. These areas are in the northeastern Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces and the southwestern Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. They make up about 35 percent of China’s land-based (基于陆地的) carbon sinks (碳汇). A carbon sink is a natural area like a forest or ocean that absorbs more-carbon dioxide than it emits (排放). Carbon sinks help to reduce the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

China’s goal is to peak (达到峰值) its CO₂ emissions (排放) before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality (中和) by 2060, Xinhua reported. Carbon neutrality refers to removing as much CO₂ as one puts into the air.

According to study co-author Yi Liu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, “the afforestation activities described in our Nature paper will play a role in reaching that goal.”

2020 Singles’ Day (Nov 11), the     1    (large) onlineshopping spree (狂欢) in China, saw a new high of about 675 millionpackages delivered. Yet the huge amounts of packaging waste    2    (produce) by the delivery services have raised concerns over environmental effect.

It’s estimated (估计) that more than 9 million tons of paper waste    3    about 1.8 million tons of plastic waste are produced bythe delivery sector every year.

According     4    a new survey which rates the performanceof China’s nine major delivery companies in green delivery packaging, nearly 70 percent of people     5    are involved in the survey said they had never used or received reusable packaging.

Using reusable packaging     6    (be) an important way to cut packaging waste from the source, but only four out of the nine companies surveyed have taken     7    (act) to put recyclable boxes into use.

In terms of the types of packaging recycled, the delivery companies    8    (main) recycle paper boxes but plastic packaging hasnot been included in their recycling programs.

In June, the State Post Bureau released a guideline     9    (manage) green packaging. The guideline calls for     10    (use) reusable and lighter materials. It also urges companies to set uprecycling bins at delivery stations for wrapping.

8 . Overweight people produce more greenhouse gases, researchers say. Therefore, watching your weight does more than protect your health. It also may help fight climate change.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine say that because food production is a major source of greenhouse gases, a population with normal weight, such as in Vietnam, consumes about 20 percent less food and produces fewer greenhouse gases than a population in which 40 percent of people are too heavy and fat, a rate close to that of the United States.

Also, less energy is required to transport slim people. say Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts, the lead researchers of the study.

They found that a physically fit population of a billion people would give off 1,000 million tons less transportation­related wastes a year than an overweight population would give off. “When it comes to food consumption (消耗), moving about in a heavy body is like driving around in a car that burns a lot of gas,” the researchers said. “The heavier our bodies become, the harder and more unpleasant it is to move about in them, and the more dependent we become on our cars. Staying slim is good for health and for the environment.”

“We need to do a lot more to stop the global trend toward fatness and recognize it as a key factor in the battle to reduce greenhouse gases and control climate change, ” they said.

However, they noted that the trend is in the opposite direction. The number of overweight people is increasing in nearly every country. The male who were overweight in England, for example, increased from 20 percent to 27.3 percent between 1999 and 2009, while the female increased from 25.8 percent to 29.6 percent.

9 . Urban (城市的) heat kills about 600 Americans every year, and sends another 65,000 to the emergency room, according to a recent report from the Urban Land Institute. Climate change is going to make these problems worse, the report’s authors write.

Given that risk, Boston — like many cities around the country —plans to plant more trees. Urban trees have benefits beyond shading and cooling. They clean the air, reduce noise pollution and help prevent flooding by absorbing storm water. “Great,” you might be thinking, “let’s plant many trees.”

Unfortunately, the solution isn’t that simple; a lot of street trees don’t make it more than a few years in the big city. “It’s tough to be a baby street tree because their roots are really little. And the summers in Boston are quite hot, so drought alone can kill them,” says Andrew Trlica, who recently earned an urban biogeochemistry doctorate fromBoston University.

An urban tree, especially one planted on a sidewalk bordering a busy street, has many factors against it. “Cars run into them. Bikes getting locked to them is really surprisingly damaging when they’re little because their bark (树皮) is weak,” Trlica explains. “Road salts are hard on their roots. Dogs would pee on them. It’s just a tough environment.”

Trlica says he began to wonder: If city officials want to increase tree canopy (树冠) cover to deal with climate change, should they focus on planting new trees or helping older ones survive? To figure it out, he looked at two conditions for Boston: spend the next two decades planting saplings (树苗) in every available sidewalk location,or spend the time reducing the mortality rate of older trees by 50%.

For Trlica, the answer was clear. Yes, Boston should continue planting trees, but the real canopy pay off will come from preserving bigger, leafier ones.

10 . Wax (蜡) paper can’t be recycled with other paper items because the wax coating interferes with the recycling process. However, there are still plenty of different options to dispose of your wax paper in an environmentally friendly way.

Wax paper is parchment paper that’s been coated with a thin layer of wax on each side. This makes it resistant to wetness and provides a non-stick surface. The majority of wax paper is coated in a food-safe wax, which is made using vegetable oil. Some brands of wax paper also use soybean oil.

The coating in wax paper is water-resistant, and paper needs to be torn with water as one of the first steps in recycling. This makes it unsuitable to be processed alongside most other paper waste. It’s also often covered with additional oils from foods, which are not accepted by recycling facilities.

While it can’t be recycled, the good news is that some wax paper can be composted at home. If you use wax paper made with vegetable or soybean oil, it can be added in small quantities to your compost. The wax is quite hard for the microbes (微生物) in compost to break down, so rip your wax paper into small pieces and add it to your compost a little at a time. Wax paper should biodegrade at around the same rate as leaf mulch. If you do use wax paper, the best sort to buy is one with unbleached, natural paper, and a wax coating made using vegetable or soybean oil.

Reusing an item as many times as possible is always a good, environmentally friendly option, especially if it can’t be recycled afterward. Rather than throw away your wax paper after one use, you can sometimes use it multiple times to extend its useful life.