Our school had carried out an activity to fight against white pollution and develop a green community yesterday. As you know, white pollution affects the naturally environment and the wellbeing of both animals and humans. In an activity, we cleaned up plastic waste at or around the campus. In addition, we called on people use recyclable items instead of plastic bags and provided them for free cotton bags.

I really appreciate this experience as it raised my aware of white pollution. I'd avoid use plastics and urge others to do the same. Like a famous saying goes, many hands make light work.   So let's start from us and act from now on.

3 . Summer music festivals are in full swing, which means that thousands of enthusiastic fans are camping nearby, ready to party. Big problems appear, however, when it comes time for them to leave. They just throw their things away and leave them for someone else to clean up—usually waste contractors (承包方) hired by the music festival. They collect all things and throw them unsorted into a landfill.

Music festivals are environmental disasters when it comes to the amount of trash produced, and this results mostly from festival-goers’ strange disposable (用完即弃的) mentality. An estimated 80 percent of trash produced by music festivals comes from what’s left behind by campers, such as sleeping bags, camp chairs, clothes, rubber boots and leftover food.

After the Isle of Wight Festival in the UK saw 10,000 abandoned (被丢弃的) tents in 2011, some environmentally-minded people decided to take action. An international movement called “Love Your Tent” was started. The movement took over a single campground at the festival and ensured that every person who wanted to camp there signed a conduct agreement that included promising to take their camping equipment home. Its first year in 2012 was a success.

Unfortunately, it continues to be a battle. When “Love Your Tent” did a survey of students at Buckinghamshire New University last year, the result showed that 60 percent of participants admitted to leaving tents behind in the past, even though 86 percent recognized that waste has an impact on the environment.

One major impediment to waste reduction is that camping equipment is cheap and of poor quality so that nobody sees the sense in packing up a dirty tent and taking it home to clean and reuse.

While there’s no easy solution to this trash disaster, it’s clear that music festival organizers need to take responsibility for what their event creates, and demand that campers clean up their act. Organizers could also provide tent-recycling facilities for those people who keep leaving tents behind. Camping, which is supposed to be a celebration of music, should never become a trash fest (集会).

4 . As a child in the 1970s, Prigi would swim, play and bath in the waters of the Surabaya River that flowed near his home. The water of the flowing river was clean enough to safely drink, and so clear that he’d look down and see his toes touching the sandy bottom of the river.

Prigi left his home in 1994 to study biology at Airlangga University. During a visit home two years later, Prigi was shocked to find the once clear river now dark brown and smelly. The river bed felt slimy (黏滑的) under his feet. Worse still, after only a very short swim, he itched (痒) all over.

Prigi set up a study group to find out why. The group studied the river, doing water sampling, and collecting information about the kinds of birds, insects, micro-organisms and fishes that still lived in and around the river. Tests confirmed they all had a range of heavy metals in their systems, such as zinc, lead and mercury, which were from harmful chemical waste from a paper factory built in the 1990s.

In 2003, Prigi launched the Surabaya River Detective Program to teach children how to collect environmental data, to observe and record the population of insects, micro-organisms, and fish in the river. Around 800 children, who take on the title of “river warrior”, have participated in the program and created informational books, posters, films, and press releases to gain the attention of the public and the government. In April 2008, the local governor set a maximum daily limit for chemical waste, and required all companies to release only treated wastewater into the river. Today, the Surabaya River is much clearer and children have even started to swim in the river.

Much of Prigi’s success has come from raising awareness among locals of the role the river plays in their lives. Today, locals work with scientists and local authorities to protect the river’s biodiversity wonders for future generations.

5 . Internet users worldwide are planting trees — nearly 65 million of them to date — just by browsing the internet. That’s because instead of relying on Google or Yahoo to conduct their online searches, they are using Ecosia.

Like other search engines, Ecosia makes money through advertising — every time someone clicks on one of the ads located next to search results, Ecosia makes several cents. The Berlin-based start-up invests 80 percent of its profits in tree planting.

Currently, 8 million users are funding 20 tree-planting projects in 15 countries. For example, Ecosia is planting mangrove trees along the Madagascar coast, nut trees in Ghana, and acacia trees in Ethiopian valley.

To make sure the trees actually stay in the ground, the search engine employs a chief tree-planting officer, who reviews projects and regularly visits tree-planting sites. The company also relies on satellite imaging to help ensure millions of trees it funds aren’t subject to logging.

The majority of Ecosia users are located in France, Germany, and the UK, but the search engine is rapidly expanding in US. “We’re seeing real growth in the US as people find out they can plant trees while searching the internet,” founder Christian Kroll said, “which means we are on track to plant more than 100 million trees by next year.”

When it comes to being a force for social good, Ecosia seems to walk the walk. As the climate movement worldwide grows, the internet has not escaped scrutiny for its carbon footprint — and for good reason. In early August, the company announced that with the completion of its second solar plant, it is returning enough renewable energy to the grid to offset more than 100 percent of the energy used by Microsoft to power Ecosia searches. Given that trees suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the start-up claims that each Ecosia internet search actually removes 1kg of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

9 . Europeans got more of their electricity from renewable sources than fossil fuels for the first time last year, according to an annual report from Ember and Agora Energiewende.

The report, which has been tracking European Union’s power sector since 2015, found that renewables delivered 38% of electricity last year, compared to 37% delivered by fossil fuels.

The shift comes as other sources, such as wind and solar power, have risen in the European Union. Both sources have nearly doubled since 2015, and as of last year accounted for one-fifth of electricity generation in EU countries, the report found. It’s also the reason why coal power declined 20% last year, making up only 13% of electricity generated in Europe.

“Rapid growth in wind and solar has forced coal into decline, but this is just the beginning,” said Dave Jones, senior electricity analyst for Ember and lead author on the report, in a statement. “Europe is relying on wind and solar to ensure not only coal is phased out by 2030, but also to phase out gas generation, replace closing nuclear power plants, and to meet rising electricity demand from electric cars and heat pumps.”

Last year’s COVID-19 lockdown measures resulted in less demand for electricity across the globe. European demand decreased by 4% in 2020, according to the report, which said COVID trends had no effect on the growth of renewable energy sources. Since 2015, Europe’s electricity emissions recorded a historic decline, becoming 29% cleaner, the report noted.

The milestone follows commitments from EU leaders last month to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55% from 1990 levels by 2030. In the United States, their counterparts (同身份的人) successfully developed renewable energy to overtake coal consumption in recent years. Last May, renewable energy sources were consumed more than coal for the first time since 1885.

“Post-pandemic economic recovery must not slow down climate action,” said Patrick Graichen, director of Agora Energiewende, in a statement. “We therefore need strong climate policies — such as in the Green Deal — to ensure steady progress.”