I'm at the salon (美发厅) and my hairdresser Kristi Lauren is talking rubbish. To be precise, she's telling me exactly how much waste her salon recycles: last year it was 125 tonnes. Everything from hair to shampoo (洗发水) bottles is recycled in innovative ways. Her waste is collected by Waste Free Systems, a social enterprise.

Lauren explains the problem, "Our colour tubes are boxed, and they can have a paper ingredient (成分) list as well as the plastic cover and the metal tube. All our product bottles. Then there's all that cut hair, and the unused colour that would normally be washed down the sink."

Waste Free Systems charges a fee for collecting the waste, and money raised by selling recycled materials goes to charities: Lauren, who runs an eight-chair salon, says, "It's a small price to pay. It ends up being just about $2 per client － we call it a green tax."

Paul Frasca is the co-founder of Sustainable Salons, a similar service which now works with almost 1,000 hairdressing salons and beauty salons across Australia and New Zealand. Frasca says many salons are now using their green programs actively as a marketing strategy. "The environmentally aware consumer is now the most important customer on the market. So it doesn't just make environmental sense." 

Both programs are researching new ways to redirect waste. Waste Free Systems is using hair to provide nutrients for plants, while Sustainable Salons makes hair products for cleaning up oil leakage. Sustainable Salons has partnered with Dresden Vision to turn plastic shampoo bottles into frames (框架) for eyeglasses. Waste Free Systems has experimented with turning plastic bottles into 3D printing material.

On the way to his home the child turned many times and beat the dog, declaring with childish gestures that he held him in contempt as an unimportant dog. The dog apologized for being this quality of animal and expressed regret in fine form, but he continued stealthily to follow the child.

When the child reached his door-step, the dog was a few yards behind, moving slowly toward him. He became so anxious with shame when he again faced the child that he forgot the dragging rope. He tripped(绊倒) upon it and fell forward.

The child sat down on the step and the two had another interview. During it the dog greatly exerted himself to please the child. He performed a few playful jumps with such abandon(尽情地) that the child suddenly saw him to be a valuable thing. He made a swift, greedy charge (猛冲) and seized the rope.

He dragged his captive(俘虏) into a hall and up many long stairways in a dark building. The dog made willing efforts but he could not walk very skillfully up the stairs because he was very small and soft, and at last the pace of the child grew so energetic that the dog became panic-stricken. In his mind he was being dragged toward somewhere unknown. His eyes grew wild with the terror of it. He began to wiggle his head wildly and to brace his legs.

The child redoubled his efforts. They had a battle on the stairs. The child was victorious because he was completely absorbed in his purpose, and because the dog was very small. He dragged his acquirement to the door of his home, and finally with victory across the doorway.

No family member was in. The child sat down on the floor and made overtures to (向……示好) the dog. The dog instantly accepted. He smiled with affection upon his new friend. In a short time they were firm and abiding(矢志不渝的) comrades.

With a few minor exceptions, there are really only two ways to say "tea" in the world. One is like the English term - te in Spanish and tee in Afrikaans are two examples. The other is some variation of cha, like chay in Hindi.

Both forms come from China. How they spread around the world offers a clear picture of how globalization worked. The words that sound like "cha" spread across land, along the Silk Road. The "tea" - like phrasings spread over water, by Dutch traders bringing the novel leaves back to Europe.

The term cha is Sinitic(汉语语系), meaning it is common to many varieties of Chinese. It began in China and made its way through central Asia, eventually becoming "chay" in Persian. That is no doubt due to the trade routes of the Silk Road, along which, according to a Cha discovery, tea was traded over 2,000 years ago. The Japanese and South Korean terms for tea are also based on the Chinese cha, though those languages likely adopted the word even before its westward spread into Persia.

But that doesn't account for "tea". Chinese character for tea, is pronounced differently by different varieties of Chinese, though it is written the same in them all. But in the Minnan variety of Chinese, spoken in the coastal province of Fujian, the character is pronounced "te". The key word here is "coastal" .

The "te" form used in coastal - Chinese languages spread to Europe via the Dutch, who became the primary traders of tea between Europe and Asia in the 17th century. The main Dutch ports in east Asia were in Fujian and Taiwan, both places where people used the "te" pronunciation. The Dutch East India company's expansive tea importation into Europe gave us the French "the", the German "Tee", and the English "ta".

Yet the Dutch were not the first to Asia. That honor belongs to the Portuguese. And the Portuguese traded not through Fujian but Macao, where "cho" is used. That's why Portugal is a pink dot in a sea of blue.