Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that over-consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place.

    The total amount of packaging(包装) increased by 12% between 2010 and 2015. It now makes up a third of a typical household's waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.

    Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of it for carrying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, a few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.

    But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But it also applies to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.

    There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realise just how much unnecessary material we are collecting. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.

    It was a cold winter day. A woman drove up to the Rainbow Bridge tollbooth(收费站). “I'm paying for myself, and for the six cars behind me,” she said with a smile, handing over seven tickets. One after another, the next six drivers arriving at the tollbooth were informed, “Some lady up ahead already paid your fare.”

    It turned out that the woman, Natalie Smith, had read something on a friend's refrigerator: “Practice random(随意的) kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” The phrase impressed her so much that she copied it down.

    Judy Foreman spotted the same phrase on a warehouse(仓库) wall far away from home. When it stayed on her mind for days, she gave up and drove all the way back to copy it down. “I thought it was beautiful,” she said, explaining why she'd taken to writing it at the bottom of all her letters, “like a message from above.” Her husband, Frank, liked the phrase so much that he put it up on the classroom wall for his students, one of whom was the daughter of Alice Johnson, a local news reporter. Alice put it in the newspaper, admitting that though she liked it, she didn't know where it came from or what it really meant.

    Two days later, Alice got a call from Anne Herbert, a woman living in Marin. It was in a restaurant that Anne wrote the phrase down on a piece of paper, after turning it around in her mind for days.

    “Here's the idea,” Anne says. “Anything you think there should be more of, do it randomly.” Her fantasies(想象) include painting the classrooms of shabby schools, leaving hot meals on kitchen tables in the poor part of town, and giving money secretly to a proud old lady. Anne says, “Kindness can build on itself as much as violence can.”

    The acts of random kindness spread. If you were one of those drivers who found your fare paid, who knows what you might have been inspired to do for someone else later. Like all great events, kindness begins slowly, with every single act. Let it be yours!

    We are deep into January, and winter is in full swing. The days are short, grey, and cold, and many of us are fighting the annoying u Winter Blues". Yes, lack of sunlight can cause a type of depression called seasonal affective disorder (or SAD). Sunlight causes an increase in serotonin­a "happy hormone" ­in your body, and with a long winter ahead of us we must look for other choices to improve our moods.

    One of the best ways to fight off SAD is with light treatment. This treatment is safe, accessible, and easy and there is a wide range of different light lamps available on the market. After about 3 weeks of using the lamp for about 30 minutes a day, users report that their symptoms greatly improve. Most of these lamps are small and simple, and can easily slip into your home's decoration­just switch it on and carry on with your normal day.

    When buying your light treatment device(设备), keep a few things in mind. Make sure that the light you are buying gives off at least 10, 000 lux of light. Less than that and the light might not be effective. There are many reviews online, and it will be easy to find the best lamp for you.

    Try to find one whose bulb is easy to find and replace. You don't want to be stuck trying to figure out how to put the lamp back together.

    Finally, do your full research. There are so many different types and styles of lamp. Do you miss exercising outside? There is even one that you can put to your treadmill（跑步机）in order to copy running outdoors.

    There are larger lamps which are considered to be the most effective. There are small, nice lamps that don't take up too much space. There are modern designs such as vintage­style light­bulbs. There are even happy lamp alarm clocks, which are like sunrise, giving their users a gentle, natural wake­up.

    So, no need to go on a trip to Jamaica to get some sun and shake out the winter blues­instead, invest in a happy light which will keep your home sunny and happy all winter long!

    Alan Naiman was known for being very careful about how he spent his money. But even those closest to him had no knowledge of the fortune he quietly gathered and the last act he had planned.

    Naiman died of cancer at age 63 last January. The man from the American state of Washington gave most of his money to groups that help the poor, sick, disabled and abandoned children.

    He gave them $11 million. The large amount of his fortune shocked the groups that received his gifts and even his best friends. That is because Naiman had been known to repair his own shoes with duct tape. He had sought deals to buy food from grocery stores at closing time and taken friends out to lunch at low cost restaurants.

    Naiman died unmarried and childless. He loved children but also was intensely private. He saved, invested and worked extra jobs to gather money. He rarely spent the money on himself after seeing how unfair life could be for children who suffer most.

    Naiman was a former banker who worked for the past 20 years at the state Department of Social and Health Services. He earned $67,234 a year and also took on side jobs. Sometimes, he worked as many as three at a time. He saved and invested enough to make several millions of dollars. He also received millions more from his parents after they died.

    He left $2.5 million to the Pediatric Interim Care Center in Washington. The center is a private organization that cares for babies born to mothers who abused drugs and children with drug dependency. The center used the money to pay off its mortgage (按揭) and buy a new vehicle to transport the children.

    Naiman gave $900, 000 to the Treehouse, where children without parents can choose toys and necessities for free. Treehouse is using Naiman's money to expand its college and career support services Statewide.

    Have you ever been to London? Here is some hotel information for you.