Multiple actions have been taken to fight food waste, but one young man is making a big difference with   technology. Liu Jichen, a student from Tsinghua University, has developed a WeChat mini-program called “Clear Your Plate”.

After a meal, users can open the mini-program and take a picture of their empty plates. Once the image is recognized by the AI, students can collect points and use them to buy gifts or purchase charity meals donated to children in poor areas.

The idea came from Liu’s experience in a canteen where he found that diners finishing their food could get a card and then small gifts with a certain number of cards collected.

“Technological innovation is a good way to reduce food waste and contribute to global food challenges.” Liu thought. With this in mind, he organized a team of 20 members to work on the project in 2017. To solve the AI’s problem of identifying photos of empty plates, the team spent half a year collecting over 100,000 samples in canteens and restaurants. In 2018, the mini-program was officially put into operation on Oct 16, World Food Day.

This year, the one-month campaign has attracted almost 1.6 million participants and collectively reduced food waste by 862 tons and carbon emissions by 3,337 tons.

“There were so many unknowns in research and development. For us, the biggest psychological challenge was whether we were confident enough to complete it,” Liu said. However, they not only achieved their goal, but now, the mini-program has more than 5 million registered users.

Thanks to his actions concerning social issues, Liu Jichen was inducted into the 2020 Class of Young Leaders   for the Sustainable Development Goals in September.

Where the streets smell like cheese: Milwaukee tries dairy waste as de-icer

In response to the winter storm striking the area last weekend, street crews of Milwaukee, a city in Wisconsin, will be spreading cheese brine(卤水)along its ice-covered streets this winter as an alternative of normally used rock salt, which serves as an essential road de-icer despite its damaging impact on the environment.

The trial was inspired by a successful experiment in rural Polk County. In addition to being a more effective de-icer due to a lower freezing point, the cheesy liquid prevents rock salt from bouncing and scattering off roadways, which means less has to be used and less of it ends up entering the surrounding environment.

Milwaukee can make good use of the difficult-to-dispose type of organic waste found in great abundance across the state: salty leftover cheese-making juice. Sometimes you just have to get creative and work with the type of waste byproduct and turn it into something beneficial. When the first cheese brine salt trucks of the city appeared in the street last week, Tom Barrett, Mayor of Milwaukee, compared the act to “thinking outside of the cheese box”.

To be clear, Milwaukee won’t completely replace rock salt with thousands of gallons of salty cheese juice. The project, which will first be tested in Bay View neighborhood, will involve a mixture of rock salt and cheese brine. The brine will be sourced from a production plant owned by F&A Dairy in Polk County. Milwaukee will save in rock salt costs while F&A Dairy, which transforms 900, 000 pounds of milk into cheese every day, will save cash in the brine disposal.

While it is noted that the cheese brine solution has a “distinctive odor.” Emil Norby, the gentleman who originally thought of using cheese brine to treat ice-covered roads, explains that Milwaukee residents can expect to experience the slight bad milk smell once the cheese brine is applied to streets. He smiles, “I don’t really mind it. Our roads smell like Wisconsin!”

Living on an island might sound wonderful. But what if you left for a trip and found you could never return? What if your home, and even the land it stood on, was gone forever? For people living in the Pacific Islands, this is really possible.

Why? Climate (气候) change. Climate change is causing the sea to rise. That's bad news for the Pacific Islands. Young people on the islands are even starting to wonder: Will they be the last generation (一代人)?

Not if the islanders have anything to do about it. These people are deeply connected to their homelands. The Pacific Islands are made up of 11 different countries: the Marshall Islands, Fiji, Samoa, and others. But now, those countries are working together. They're joining forces to fight climate change.

Why is climate change such a huge threat to this part of the world? Islands are low elevations (海拔). So they are among the first places influenced by rising sea levels. That's why countries of the Pacific Islands are working together to do their part.

But these are small countries. When it comes to climate change, can they make a big difference? They can, because most of the things that people on islands buy are brought by ships. This is very harmful to the environment. After all, ships put out almost 3 percent of the world's carbon emissions (碳排放). That makes climate change worse.

Pacific Islanders realize the problem. So, in 2019, six countries got together: Fuji, the Marshall islands, Samoa, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. They came up with a plan. They agreed to cut carbon emissions from shipping by 40 percent by 2030. And by 2050, they expect zero-carbon shipping.

How will they pull this off? They plan to use some really cool carbon-free technologies. They'll make use of solar and wind energy.

Sea levels are rising, but hopes aren't sinking in the Pacific Islands.