Two Toronto entrepreneurs (企业家) are on a mission to change the way you get your coffee to go. Scott Morrison and Ryan Dyment,     1     are co-founders of Dream Zero, have been working to bring reusable food and beverage (饮料) containers to the Canadian market for the past four years.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Dream Zero supplied street festivals and corporate events with reusable cups to cut down on plastic waste. But when everything shut down and all of their 2020 events were canceled, they realized they had to come up with another idea.

That’s when they discovered Muuse, an app-based reusable cup program     2     originated in Singapore and was being used in Hong Kong and Jakarta. Morrison and Dyment realized this could be an ideal fit for Canadians     3     care about plastics, waste, and convenience. After making a deal with the app’s founders, Muuse was launched in Toronto in February 2021.

In a phone conversation, Morrison explained how Muuse works. After a free 30-day trial, users can purchase a monthly membership for $5 and ask for a Muuse cup when they enter participating cafes. Morrison said, “The barista (咖啡馆招待员) shows the bottom of the cup,     4     is where the QR code (二维码) is, and scans it. Then he fills the coffee order, puts it up on the bar, and the user takes it. Once they’re done, the user can return it to any participating cafes by scanning the bottom of the cup again, and then scanning the QR     5     is located on the return bin.”

When asked what appeal an in-house reusable cup program has for customers     6     could just bring their own at no extra cost, Morrison pointed out that cups are easy to forget and inconvenient to carry around. He mentioned a running group of people     7     visit a farmer’s market in Toronto every Saturday. They’re now faithful Muuse members.

4 . Anna Devolld likes bees, butterflies, ladybugs, hummingbirds and even bats. The 17-year-old prize winner is now helping small things to make a difference. Many TV programs and newspapers have featured her about her efforts to introduce the vital role pollinators (授粉者) play. You might say she’s been busy as a bee. She has created and helped plant over 2,000 free Pollinator Packs, each containing six different pollinator-friendly seedlings (幼苗). She also regularly visits local classrooms to teach students about pollinators and to help them plant their own Pollinator Packs.

As a teenager, Anna worried about the little things that keep our world beautiful and our orchards (果园) producing food. Anna’s solution is to increase habitats that attract pollinators and to educate the next generation about the importance of creating pollinator-friendly spaces. Her first project was creating activities and coloring books for kids to help them understand how important pollinators are to our planet. Next, she created Pollinator Packs: plants that attract bees and other pollinators to your garden. It wasn’t long before she was part of community councils encouraging the planting of pollinators in communities and roadside hallways. She now serves on her local government’s environmental advisory commission.

“One out of every three bites of food we take is dependent on pollinators,” Anna tells us. “Sadly, every one of these creatures is declining at an alarming rate.” We all can make a difference. As Anna says, “Find something you are passionate about, no matter how small, and see how you can change the world.”

So, the next time you take a bite out of a delicious apple or peach, or even better, enjoy your favorite fruit in a home-baked pie, think about all the little creatures that made it happen. Then think about Anna and how one teenage girl is making sure millions of pollinators are happy and productive.

Green School in Uruguay

Francesco Fassina(Ecologist and Volunteer)

Michael Reynolds (Architect)

Alicia Alvarez (School Director)

Danila Mendez (Mother of a student)

Narrator : A sunny winter’s day is great news for these Uruguayan children. As pupils of South America’s first sustainable school, they study in a building heated only using solar panels. On top of the normal school programme, they learn about recycling, energy saving,and growing their own food

Francesco Fassina: The school is an autonomous building in the sense that it isn’t connected to any energy infrastructure for water or anything. It’s sustainable in the way it functions; totally autonomous and it works thanks to its connection with nature—the sun and the rain.

Narrator : The building was funded by a local NGO and a detergent company, and designed by US architect Michael Reynolds, a self-professed “garbage warrior” who's devoted his career to building self-sufficient structures out of recyclable material.

Michael Reynolds: People called me an idiot, uh, building with garbage, what a fool, you’re a disgrace to the architectural community, uh, you know. I was trying to contain sewage and treat it and do all of these things that architects didn’ t do

Narrator : The 39 students, so me just starting pre-school and others in their final year before university learn it’s possible to live in a building that produces no waste. NGO volunteers organise regular workshops on sustainability for pupils and teachers too.

Alicia Alvarez: Little by little, we`re becoming qualified. In fact were being trained by them. We`re being trained to learn how the school works. How to maintain it so that the systems don’t deteriorate.

Narrator : Some of the children have even started educating their parents

Danila Mendez: Every day, we walk here, and he finds glass in the sand or plastic or something and he picks it up. He says. “T`m keeping this to throw it away.” He doesn’t leave it there. He picks it up and he throws it away in the right place.

Narrator : For these little garbage warriors, saving the planet has become an integral part of their homework.

Most people suffer from     1     is known as “Just-me-ism” sometimes. As a result, they think their actions, for example, leaving the tap     2    (run) while they brush their teeth, leaving a light burning when they go out or dropping a piece of litter and not being bothered     3    (pick) it up, won’t be harmful     4     the environment or their community. But, in fact, they will and they could matter. Roots & Shoots was established in the early 1990s by Dr. Jane Goodall, who’s well-known     5     an expert on wild chimpanzees. Its purpose is     6    (educate) young people to build a future that is secure and live together in peace     7    nature. The idea is that if you educate enough individuals, they can change the world and make it a     8    (good) place for people, animals and the environment because as Dr. Jane Goodall says: “It is by     9    (act) together, in this exciting way,     10    we can involve thousands-millions-of people, and this is what is going to change the world.”

8 . In Finding the Mother Tree, Suzanne Simard takes us through her career in the forests, working on plantations to identify links between crop production, herbicide (除草剂) use and species diversity. In carrying out these studies, she goes on to discover that trees communicate through underground fungi (真菌) networks. At the centre of these webs is an individual known as the “mother tree” that coordinates, feeds and sustains the other members of the forest.

The strength of this story isn’t only in the discoveries she makes, but her courageous persistence. She recalls how some members of her profession almost laughed her out of the room on first hearing her findings, not helped by the fact that she was a woman in a male-dominated field, trying to convince a room full of foresters that their age-old methods were imperfect.

Like Robin Wall Kimmerer combining ecology and the human spirit, Simard demonstrates that scientific research is not only about figures and conferences, but a voyage of passion and self-reflection that depends on the instinctive character of the human mind and the precision of experimentation. Simard’s ancestry is rooted in the outdoors, yet she recognises that the old ways of working with the land must evolve. She refuses to let cultural biases (偏见) influence her, instead listening to what the forest tells her.

This book also shares insights into Simard’s personal life: friendships, marriage, motherhood and breast cancer. She connects these seemingly separate parts of her life to her research into tree relationships, air, Earth and beyond. Her own relationships, not just with people but with trees, become reflections on connections with Earth. Her book thus invites us to embrace this connection with Earth when she writes: “I can’t tell if my blood is in the trees or if the trees are in my blood.”

10 . The practice of removing best-before dates labels and plastic packaging could prevent 14 million shopping baskets’ worth of food from going to waste, a food waste charity Wrap has recommended. Doing so would make consumers buy the right amount, avoiding buying bigger packets than they need, and judge for themselves when items were still fine to eat.

Wrap’s chairman Marcus Gover called the practice a game-changer in the fight against food waste and plastic pollution. He said they had demystified (使容易理解) the relationship between wasted food, plastic packaging, date labels and food storage.

“It is clear that plastic packaging doesn’t necessarily extend the life of fresh produce, but instead can increase waste,” he said. Around 9.5 million tonnes of food are wasted in the UK every year, according to previous Wrap figures, with more than 85% coming from households and food producers.

Based on an 18-month study into five commonly wasted items — apples, bananas, broccoli, cucumber and potatoes — stored in the original packaging and at different temperatures, Wrap found produce good to eat well after the best-before date, with apples lasting at least two and a half months after if stored at 4℃, and broccoli staying fresh for more than two weeks afterwards. Removing the best-before dates labels could save 100,000 tonnes of household food waste, more than 10,300 tonnes of plastic and 130,000 tonnes of carbon emission a year, Wrap found.

Susan Jebb, chairwoman of the Food Standards Agency, said businesses should use date labels carefully and make it clear when it’s necessary to help shoppers reduce the risk of food-related illnesses. “A best-before date is about quality, which means the food will be safe to eat after this date, even if it may not be at its best,” she said, whereas use-by dates should be reserved for food like meat and salad which can become unsafe more quickly.