We're so attached to plastic, but we're careless consumers. Waste plastic is entering our ecosystems and food chains with untold consequences. Cleaning up our polluted world of plastic may seem a noble, but thankless task. However, some people are seeing economic opportunity in the mission.

Plastic Bank, a social enterprise from Canada, is monetizing plastic recycling while empowering those most affected by the waste. It works to prevent waste plastic from entering oceans by encouraging people in developing countries to collect plastic from their communities in exchange for cash, food, clean water or school tuition for their children. After collection, plastic is weighed, sorted, chipped, melted into balls and sold on as“raw material”to be made into everything from bottles for cleaning products to clothing.

“I saw in large quantities; I saw an opportunity,”CEO David Katz told the audience at the Sustainable Brands Oceans conference in Porto, Portugal on November 14.“We reveal the value in this material,”he added.

Plastic Bank was founded in 2013 and launched on the ground operations in 2014 in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western, Hemisphere, where close to 60% of the population live under the poverty line. As result of poor waste disposal and recycling infrastructure (基础设施)，plastic waste enters rivers or is burned and poses the health threats to the local residents.

The company says i has over 2,000 collectors working in the country, with its full- time collectors on average 63% above the poverty line thanks to the income they make from the project. Through its app based payment system, many collectors now have bank accounts for the first time, and are able to ultimately escape ultra poverty.

“Nothing we're doing is against the laws of physics,”said Katz. “All the technology exists for us to solve and save the world. It's only creative thought.”

William Berloni, 59, is Broadway’s dog expert. He trains and manages dogs for musicals and plays that need a well-behaved dog. He also works for movies and TV shows with all kinds of animals, including cats, pigs, sheep, snakes and rats. His retired(退休的) actors, including 30 dogs that have acted in shows, live with him and his wife on a farm in Connecticut.

When he was a kid, Berloni’s main playmates were his dog, cat and rabbit. But he says he never thought he would become a professional animal trainer. He always wanted to be an actor. But while working as an assistant for the Broadway play Annie in 1976, he was given the job of finding a dog to play Sandy.

Berloni visited an animal shelter, where lost dogs and other pets were kept until they were adopted(收养). The shelter took in so many animals that pets which were not quickly adopted were killed. “I did not know that some animals were killed,” said Berloni, who adopted a dog on the day when it was supposed to be killed

The dog, which Berloni named Sandy, turned out to be a perfect “actor” after a little training. The pair learned from each other, and Berloni became better and better as a trainer. Sandy starred in almost all of the show’s 2,377 Broadway plays and enjoyed retirement on Berloni’s farm in 1983.

Since then, Berloni kept finding good dogs from animal shelters and the dogs all acted well in shows. How can Berloni train so many good dogs? “Love is the big motivator(动力),” he said.

When 16-year-old Violet Brill looks out her window, she doesn’t see only grass and trees—she sees a great meal. Her father, famous plant expert Steve “Wildman” Brill, carried her along on his foraging(觅食)tours from the time she was a little girl.

In the past decade or so, a renewed interest in foraging for edible(可食用的) plants has begun to appear—an interest that has truly blossomed recently.

“I think we’ve had a lot of time to get outdoors, and look around,” says Adele Nozedar, author of Foraging for Kids. “There is rapid growth in foraging in the past year.”

Kids are natural-born foragers. Take them out into the woods and they’ll happily gather fallen leaves, or root around in the undergrowth for hidden treasures. Foraging is definitely a gateway to nature. Kids learn quickly that it’s not just a bunch of green stuff outside. All those plants have a purpose.

And by encouraging a love of nature, foraging also encourages a love of the environment. “Having a strong connection to the land means you’re more likely to protect it,” says Dave Hamilton, author of Family Foraging. “And you can’t get much more connected to the land than eating from it.”

Plus, foraging brings good news for parents of picky eaters: When kids search for and pick their own food, they’re more likely to be invested in it. Foraging for wild edibles encourages kids to try new, nutritious foods—especially kids who tend to turn their noses up at the vegetables on their plates.

For instance, Hamilton remembers taking a group of boys camping and asking them to gather enough lambsquarters for dinner. They came back with three days’ worth of the greens, which he turned into a pesto(青酱).

“They absolutely loved it,” he says. “There’s something empowering about finding your own food, especially for kids.”