Zero Waste Awards

    Who should enter?

    Entries(参赛作品) are welcomed from anyone who processes waste. While we expect

    most entries to come from the UK, we welcome international entries, too. Entrants have been split into the following groups: private sector, public sector, community sector and partnerships.

    What are the categories?

    There're five categories which are based on the Waste Hierarchy(层级). We appreciate that companies will have different strengths within those categories as they work towards Zero Waste. The broad categories are: waste prevention, re-use, recycle/recover, energy recovery, general.

    How do I enter?

    Submitting an entry is really easy! Just follow these few simple steps:

    1) Carefully read through the category information;

    ). Write your entry--it should be a maximum of 1,500 words and a word document;

    3) Arrange your supporting material into a single document--maximum six pages long;

    4) Complete the simple online entry form.

    Important dates

    While entries are welcomed all year round, these are key dates—this is to give the judges plenty of time to read through all the entries! These are listed in entry deadlines column below. Don't worry if you have just missed one of the entry deadlines, your submission will be automatically entered into the next session.

    You can submit a maximum of two entries per year—six months apart.

    Awards

    We understand that working towards Zero Waste is an ongoing journey and as such the

    Zero Waste Awards scheme offers organizations a structure to celebrate their progress along the way. The four awards are: Gold (76-100), Silver (51-75), Bronze (26-50), Highly Commended(0-25).

    A gaming company in New Zealand is luring employees from around the world by offering unlimited paid annual leave, a share in the company's profits and no set work hours.

    Dean Hall became famous in international gaming circles for being the lead designer on popular video game DayZ. After searching the world for a location for his new gaming studio, Rocketwerkz, New Zealander Hall settled on the small university town of Dunedin on the south island's east coast, where land is cheap and creative start-ups have become an important pan of the city's identity.

    Rocketwerkz's flexible work culture is now drawing talent from around the globe, with Hall receiving 300 messages of inquiry since a local newspaper wrote about his studio last week.

    Last year, when the company was still in its infancy(婴儿期), baby cats would also make a regular appearance in the office as a form of fighting stress, and Friday afternoons are generally reserved for sports and games to end the week on a playful note.

"The first time I heard about the idea of unlimited paid leave in places like Silicon Valley it was about the problems it caused. A culture had appeared where employees took no leave," said Hall.

"So to address that, our staff are issued the standard New Zealand annual leave of four weeks, but they can also take unlimited leave in addition to that."

    Emily Lampitt, from Britain, is a 3D junior artist who has been with the company for a year and a half. She says the flexible work culture was a huge factor in her decision to move to New Zealand.

"The flexibility here has made me feel much more relaxed" she says. I "That internal stress I used to feel in a traditional work environment has gone, so when I am at work now it is because I want to be, because I am passionate(有激情的), not because I am afraid of my boss or watching the clock."

The story of the movie Inside Out mostly takes place inside the mind of 11-year-old Riley as she moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. The main characters are Riley's emotions—Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger and Fear, which guide her decisions and often compete with one another for control of her brain.

    Fear is tall, thin, looks like a frayed(焦燥的)nerve and is purple. Not only that, his eyes are purple, too. Anger, which is red, looks like a brick and has red eyes. Disgust, who is green, has green eyes. Sadness, not surprisingly, is completely blue, and even looks like a teardrop. But Joy, who is mainly yellow, has more than one color in her. She has blue eyes and blue hair. Why? Well, if blue represents sadness, then the message is clear: there is no such ting as “pure joy”. Instead, even in our most joyous times, there is often sadness mixed in.

    After all, one of the most joyous moments we can experience is a wedding, but it may end with the breaking of a glass. It reminds us that our world is still broken. In order words, even at our highest moments, there is always a little sadness.

    But the comfort is that the reverse is often true. Think about how you feel after crying. When you cry, your body is releasing some chemicals that often make you feel good. And that's why you feel at ease after a good cry.

    Indeed, Inside Out reminds us that even the emotions that appear “negative' have value. In other words, Inside Out shows us that the goal of life isn't “to be happy”. We will feel sad, angry or frightened. But we need our whole range of emotions for developing our sense of self and our relationship with others.

    “Did you hear what happened to Adam Last Friday?” Lindsey whispers to Tori.

    With her eyes shining, Tori brags, “You bet I did. Sean told me two days ago.”

    Who are Lindsey and Tori talking about? It just happened to be yours truly, Adam Freedman. I can tell you that what they are saying is (a) not nice and (b) not even true. Still, Lindsey and Tori aren't very different from most students here at Linton High School, including me. Many of our conversations are gossip(闲话). I have noticed three effects of gossip: it can hurt people, it can give gossipers a strange kind of satisfaction, and it can cause social pressures in a group.

    An important negative effect of gossip is that it can hurt the person being talked about. Usually, gossip spreads information about a topic–breakups, trouble at home, even dropping out-that a person would rather keep secret. The more embarrassing or shameful the secret is, the juicier the gossip it makes. Probably the worst type of gossip is the absolute lie. People often think of gossipers as harmless, but cruel lies can cause pain.

    If we know that gossip can be harmful, then why do so many of us do it? The answer lies in another effect of gossip: the satisfaction it gives us. Sharing the latest rumor can make a person feel important because he or she knows something that others don't. Similarly, hearing the latest rumor can make a person feel like part of the “in group.” In other words, gossip is satisfying because it gives people a sense of  belonging or even superiority(优越感).

    Gossip also can have a third effect: it strengthens unwritten, unspoken rules about how people should act. Professor David Wilson explains that gossip is important in policing behaviors in a group. Translated into high school terms, this means that if everybody you hang around with is laughing at what John wore or what Jane said, then you can bet that wearing or saying something similar will get you the same kind of negative attention. The do's and don'ts conveyed through gossip will never show up in any student handbook.

    The effects of gossip vary depending on the situation. The next time you feel the urge to spread the latest news, think about why you want to gossip and what effects your “juicy story” might have.

    In the four months since I last posted articles on my blog, I've been spending a lot of time studying Chinese. I wanted to pass the HSK. From the beginning of my program, the HSK was the end goal of my Chinese learning this year. Luckily, I passed it and now I have one and a half months to go home and stay with my family.

It's really exciting to learn Chinese in an environment where I can study very fast. What's more, I can see my own progress in different ways. When I got here eight and a half months ago, I only knew a few of the 150 words tested in the HSK 1.However, until now, I've taken and passed the 2500­word HSK 5.

    I remember a time around January. I thought my Chinese had reached the point where I was comfortable in my day­to­day conversations. So my progress would slow down greatly. However, it turned out that I was totally wrong. The conversations I can have now far surpass(超过) the ones I was having in January.

    Today I hit a language­learning landmark(里程碑) that was particularly exciting for me: I finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in Chinese. It might not seem that exciting, but it was for me because it's the first full book I've read in Chinese. And it's the third language I've read Harry Potter in. I'm especially proud because I spent about seven months reading the first 35 pages, but in the last month and a half, I managed to read about 150 pages. My next challenge is to read a novel written by a Chinese author, rather than one that I've already read many times in English!

    Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up my language­learning progress over the next month and a half, because I know I'll probably never have another opportunity to learn a language like this.

    Do you want to learn a new language？If you do, go to the country where people speak it and learn it from the locals.

    Your kids learn a lot from their friends—things you can't teach them, no matter how much you want to.

    Probably the most important thing kids learn is how to have peer relationships. As a parent, you can't do this, because you and your child aren't equals.

    For example, when you're sitting on your family room floor and your very young child asks you to pass him the blocks, you probably hand them right over. If your child is sitting with a peer and asks the same thing, though, he might not get what he wants.

    To succeed, your child will need to learn strategies for getting what he wants. For example, he might simply yank (猛拉) the toy out of his friend's hand. If he does that, he may learn that it's not the best way of getting what he wants because it leads to fighting and time­outs. The successful child will learn that he needs to negotiate a trade, to wait patiently, or to find something else equally fun to play with.

    Friends also provide emotional support, something that is part of the foundation of healthy adulthood. You can't be with your child on the elementary school playground or at the high school dance. Your child's friends will be the ones to stick up for her, to include her in games, and later, to tell her she looks great even if her lousy prom (糟糕的舞会) date wanders off instead of dancing with her.

    Friends also help your children learn. Friends solve problems together, imitate each other, and pass on knowledge.

    Some experts believe that the single biggest predictor of your child's success later in life is her ability to make friends. In fact, they claim it's even more important than IQ and grades.

    This doesn't mean that the kids who are most popular in school do the best later on in life. What matters is not the number of friends a child has but rather the quality of the relationships.

    This is good news for those of us who hate to think that popularity really is the Holy Grail of childhood and adolescence. While it's true that popularity has many advantages, and that many popular kids really are nice people—and not just the best dressed or best looking—it's better to have a few good friends than to have the admiration of the masses.