Plants are very important living things. Life could not go on if there were no plants. This is because plants can make food from air, water and sunlight. Animals and men can't make food from air, water and sunlight. Animals get their food by eating plants and other animals. Therefore, animals and men need plants in order to live. This is the reason why we find so many plants around us.

    If you look carefully at the plants around you, you will find that there are many kinds of plants. Some plants are large while others are small. Most plants are green.

    Some plants have many small leaves. Others have only a few. There are many kinds of leaves. Leaves are of different shapes and colors.

    Leaves are also different in other ways. Some leaves have long thin parts at the end, we call them leaf stalks, some have short leaf stalks, others even have no leaf stalks. The leaf edges are also different. Some leaves have smooth(平滑) edges. Some have a wave-shaped edges. Others have edges like the teeth of a saw(锯子).

    Fraser Island is in Queensland, Australia, about 200 kilometers north of Brisbane. It is about 120 kilometers long and 240 kilometers wide. It is a very important island because it is completely made of sand. In fact, it is the largest sand island in the world. There is no airport on the island, but there is a long beach along the east coast. Planes arrive and leave from here.

    The sand makes unusual shapes. There are hills made of sand called sand blows. Nothing grows on them. They move one or two meters a year from the northwest towards the southeast of the island, getting bigger and bigger. At other places on the island, such as Rainbow Gorge, The Cathedrals and Red Canyon, the sandy rocks have different colors. Sometimes the rocks are so brown that they turn the sea brown, like coffee.

    Surprisingly, the sandy island has a lot of different plants and animals. There are dark forests—eucalyptus woods, beautiful flowers and over a hundred lakes. There are many kinds of birds, like owls and curlews. There are many animals there, too, such as crocodiles, flying foxes and wild dogs called dingoes.

    About 500,000 people visit the island every year to see the island's beauty and nature. People enjoy camping and hiking（徒步）there. Unluckily, the visitors create problems. They damage plants and frighten animals. Their sun cream（防晒霜）makes the water dirty. So it is necessary to manage the visitors. For example, people may not use motor boats or go fishing in the lakes, and they need official papers to drive there.

    "Mirror (镜子) mirror on the wall, what film is on in the cinema?"

Now with this kind of new mirror, you can brush your teeth and read news at the same time in your bathroom. Now not many people have this kind of mirror, but it will be popular very soon.

    The mirror works with new software(软件). You can use it to get news. You can also make your time table on it. It can also tell you what to wear because it knows the weather. The mirror is very clever. You can write notes on it for family members.

    There's another kind of new mirror, too. It can get much information from the user's clothes. It tells the users what clothes make him or her look good. Going shopping or eating out? Wait a minute! The mirror can give you some coupons(优惠券), too.

    A new rubbish sorting system (垃圾分类系统) has been put into use in Fangchengyuan Community in Beijing. Local people not only sort their rubbish, but also put QR codes (二维码) on it.

    "When the rubbish is collected and the codes are scanned (扫描), I will get reward points to exchange for small gifts and even some money," one of the local people told reporters. "It's really creative and encouraging."

    This smart system has been carried out in 350 communities in Beijing. The capital of China has joined a list of cities in the country that take action to support rubbish sorting. For example, Shenzhen and Shanghai have made laws to punish people and organizations for not sorting rubbish correctly.

    China produces quite a lot of rubbish every year. Much of the rubbish is buried (填埋) in soil or burned without being sorted. Landfills (填埋场) take up a lot of land and have a risk of polluting the soil and water nearby. And burning rubbish can produce harmful gases. Through rubbish sorting, we can reduce the use of landfills and air pollution.

    What's more, rubbish sorting saves resources, which could bring economic benefits (经济利益). For example, a ton of waste paper can be reused to make about 850kg of paper, saving 17 trees and 50 percent of water. Because of their benefits, some countries have developed successfully sorting systems.

    In Australia, every family is provided with three rubbish bins—the red lid (盖子) bin for "general waste" like food and plastic bags, the yellow lid bin for "recyclable (可回收利用的) waste" like steel and glass, and the green lid bin for "green waste", such as grass and leaves. On the street, the bins are printed with pictures of the things that are allowed inside. It makes recycling quite easy.

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