Pumpkins (南瓜) have all shapes and sizes and have colors of golden orange, white and green. Cooked in a pie, they are symbols of autumn that are grown in every county of Washington.

U.S. farmers grow more than a billion pounds of pumpkins every year, and many famers use sheets (膜) of plastic blocking the grass and preventing water loss to make their plants grow well. In the country, farmers use about a billion pounds of plastic every year. Unfortunately, that plastic is thrown away finally, and in some areas, burned in the fields.

For several years, Carol Miles has studied a new product—the soil-biodegradable (土壤生物降解的) plastic cover that can be left in the ground after harvest, then broken down by things in the soil. “You don't need to pull it out of the field and throw it away every autumn, saving time and money,” Miles said.

Most pumpkins grow along vines (藤蔓) that spread through the grass-blocking cover, and Miles wanted to see how pumpkin fruit performed over the plastic cover. That brought a challenge: the soil-biodegradable cover stuck to the bottom of the fruit.

“We have a lot of dew (露水) in the morning, and we found that if we let the fruit dry after harvest, the cover would stick more strongly to the pumpkins,” Miles said. “Nobody wants plastic stuck to pumpkins, even if it's biodegradable. But if you wipe the fruit before the dew dries, the plastic comes right off.”

Farmers who grow plants that don't set fruit on plastic covers won't meet this challenge. For those who do, it means an extra step that they'll have to weigh against advantages and disadvantages for the development.

“Challenges aside, working with this crop can bring on a happy picture,” the farmer Tymon said. “Pumpkins are great. They have bright colors, and are really fun to work with.”

Ways to Host an Eco-Friendly Cookout

Eating in the open air may feel eco-friendly, but outdoor dining can result in unnecessary waste if you aren’t careful. 【小题1】. Keep that in mind, you’ll be off to a good start.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Skip the paper invitations and use online services like Email, or Facebook events. 【小题2】. This way you’ll avoid ending up with five different potato salads that go uneaten. Make it easy for guests to sort garbage by preparing different dustbins: one for kitchen garbage, one for recyclables, and one for non-recyclables.

Stop Using Plastic

Plastic is a leading cause of litter and isn’t easy to recycle. To make sure your cookout eco-friendly, consider some other options for making your cookout stand out. Use recycled jars as glasses. They’re also far less breakable than regular glasses. 【小题3】. If guests know which glass is theirs, they don’t need to reach for another one, which cuts down on the cleanup you’ll be doing.

【小题4】

Wherever possible, shop for local produce and goods to serve your guests. This will reduce your carbon footprint and help support your local economy. Buy produce and meats at your local farmers’ market. Look for organic, but favor local over organic if you have to make a choice.

Use Renewable Light Sources

【小题5】. As the sun goes down, illuminate(照亮) your party space with LED lighting and solar-powered decorations. Invest in some candles and torches to help drive away insects naturally.

African Bushmen may be able to help. For hundreds of years. Bushmen have understood the ways of wild animal: what the animals cat; where the animals go; and even where they sleep. However, the Bushmen don’t always speak the same language as the conservationists. This can cause problems when they work together. This is where the Cyber Tracker comes in.

The Cyber Tracker is an invention created by Louis Liebenberg. He hopes that together, the Cyber Tracker and the Bushmen can help protect the animals. The Cyber Tracker is a small computer that helps collect information about animals. It uses pictures, called “icons”, instead of words to record information. There are pictures for drinking, walking, fighting, sleeping, eating and other things. This way, the Bushmen can record what they see even without speaking the same language. The Cyber Tracker can collect very detailed and complicated information very quickly.

However. that’ s not the only thing the Cyber Tracker can do. The small computer also contains a global positioning device. Each time a Bushman sees something interesting about an animal or plant, he pushes a button The Cyber Tracker records exactly where the man is in the world. The Bushman can also record what the animals are eating by pushing different buttons to name about 50 plants.

However, Liebenberg adds that the human factor is also very important. A big part of the project is the Bushman’s ability to understand and correctly report everything he sees. The combination of machine and man seems to work very well. With the data collected by the Cyber Tracker. Liebenberg makes maps showing where the animal herds are and what the animals are eating, indicating facts about their health.