When you are shopping for the week’s food, you may get a large box or two of bottled water. On your way to a soccer game, it’s easy to take a cold one out of the fridge, right?

But all those plastic bottles use a lot of fossil fuels(矿物燃料). In fact, Americans buy more bottled water than any other country in the world, about 29 billion water bottles a year. In order to make all these bottles, 17 million barrels (桶) of crude oil are used. That’s enough oil to keep a million cars going for twelve months.

Americans drink bottled water because they think it is better than water out of the tap, but that’s not true. In the United States, local governments make sure water from the tap is safe. People love the convenience(便利) of bottled water. But may-be if they realized the problems it causes, they would try drinking from a glass at home or carrying water in a steel container instead of a plastic bottle.

Plastic bottles pollute the environment but recycling can help—instead of going out with the rubbish, plastic bottles can be turned into useful items. Sadly, for every six water bottles we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin. The rest are sent to landfills. Or, even worse, they end up as rubbish on the land and in rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Plastic bottles take many hundreds of years to disintegrate under the ground.

Remember this: Recycling one plastic bottle can save enough energy to power a 60-watt (瓦) light bulb for six hours.

The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon rainforest(亚马逊雨林), covers 40% of the area of South America. It makes about one fifth of Earth’s oxygen(氧气). People call it “the lungs(肺) of our earth”.

However, the Amazon rainforest is in danger now. A large fire happened there. It lasted for 22 days and ended on August 27, 2019. In fact, there are a large number of fires in the rainforest this year. Between January and August, there were over 74,000 fires. Most of the fires came from people’s activities. Farmers in the Amazon rainforest use fire to prepare for planting for many years. But what they do is dangerous because these fires can easily get out of hand.

By now, the fire has been put out. But scientists say it will take about 20—40 years to build the forest’s ecosystem(生态系统) again. The fire also burned plenty of trees. Without trees, many animals lost their homes because of the fire, such as monkeys, birds, sloths and so on. The Amazon river is also polluted. Air is not clean any more. The Amazon rainforest is our home. Let’s protect it and repair(修复) the ecosystem together!

Today is June 5th. It’s World Environment Day, and also my birthday. My father gives me a present. It’s a blue bike. My father works for environmental protection（环境保护）. He hopes I can ride the bike to school. I like the bike very much. But that’s not all. My father wants to give me another present. Then we go to the park. There are a few volunteers doing some cleaning. My father and I join them. Father says it’s my second present. We work happily.

There is a shop near the park that sells plants and flowers. After we do some cleaning, my father and I go to the shop. Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday. We find a beautiful flower there.

I want to buy the flower for her.

We plant the flower in the yard. “Mum, Mum, please come here. We have a present for you,” I say. Mum likes the present a lot. She is very happy.

I hope I can do something for the environment. As we all know, green mountains and clear water are equal to（等于）mountains of gold（金）and silver（银）. Good environment will be the best present for everyone.