Switzerland (瑞士) is one of the most developed countries in Europe. It is famous as one of the cleanest countries in the world.

The Swiss (瑞士人) think that recycling is important. The government has made laws which require everyone to recycle. In 1998, the Swiss government passed a law which says that people cannot throw away any electronic machines. Instead, people are told to bring old ones, such as televisions, computers and fridges, to special centers when they don't need them. Many parts of the old machines are reused, and only the parts that can't be used are thrown away.

The government also charges (收费) a rubbish bag tax (税). If people want their rubbish to be collected, they must buy yellow stickers and put them on their rubbish bags. In 2003, 47G of all rubbish in the cities was recycled. This included 70% of paper, 95% of glass, 71% of plastic bottles and 85--90% of cans. Until recently, people can get a small amount of money when they recycle their bottles. Recycling has become a daily habit for the Swiss.

     Everyone should learn from the Swiss, and our country will be clean like Switzerland.

    People usually check whether their keys, purses and phones are with them before going out, but many people in China now have one more important thing to take--a mask(口罩). They hope it can protect them 1 terrible air.

    Many cities in China saw a lot of foggy days in April. In Beijing, there were eight days in April full of smog. It is dirty air 2 looks like a mixture of fog and smoke. The smoke is mainly from cars and factories in cities. Poor air is bad for people's health, 3 for children and old people. They fell ill easily and the 4 were full of people. They had problems with their noses and lungs.

    So it's necessary 5 people from doing so many bad things to the environment. For example, people should use cars less and   6 burn lots of coal and gas. Government needs to take measures to make factories stop pouring 7 waste air into the sky.

    Three students from No. 4 High School in Beijing 8 a report to advise how to protect the environment. They suggested  9people should plant more trees and act off fewer fireworks for celebration. We hope more people will join us in 10 a difference. In this way, the blue sky will certainly return for good.

    Why do we like drinking water from plastic bottles? Some people think it is healthy and clean. Others drink bottled water because it's easy--you can carry it around with you. In hot countries, like Greece, we often buy bottles of cold water in the summer.

    However, making lots of plastic is not a good idea for many reasons. First of all, we need a lot of oil for plastic products. We usually use oil as a resource of energy. If we reduced the number of bottles we made, we wouldn't need so much oil. Plastic bottles also pollute the environment. If we recycled all our plastic bottles, we wouldn't need so much space for rubbish dumps. But in Greece, we don't recycle much of the plastic we use. In 2006, Greeks recycled only about 10% of plastic waste. The rest became rubbish on land and in rivers and seas.

    So next time you want to throw away a plastic bottle in the litter bin, stop and think. If you recycled it, you would help the environment. But what can you do when there isn't a recycling bin near you? Well, there are lots of useful ways that you can use your bottles again. For example, an empty bottle makes a great piggy bank for your pocket money, and if you cut in half, you will have a plant pot. Go green! You can make a difference.