English news for Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Japan's Ministry^*1 of the Environment^*2 has updated a free tool. The ministry is the part of the Japanese government that takes care of nature, air and water. The tool shows how much 3R actions^*3 help the environment.

There are many kinds of 3R actions. A store can sell food without a plastic tray. A person can carry their own bottle for drinks. People can also recycle^*4 plastic bottles. The tool makes it easy to see how much good these actions do.

The tool is simple to use. It is made with Excel, a computer program for working with numbers. Users type in how many times they did an action. They can also type in the weight of the containers^*5 that they collected. Then the tool does the math by itself.

The ministry used the results of earlier studies to make the tool. The tool looks at the whole life of a product. This means getting the materials^*6, making the product, carrying it, and throwing it away.

The ministry gives some ideas for using the tool. A store that collects plastic bottles can show the results to its customers. A store can sell more of its own products that come in light containers. Companies can show people how they help the environment. Companies and customers can also work together. The tool can be used in local lessons about the environment too.

Anyone can get the tool for free from a special page on the ministry's website. There are also two guides for version^*7 2.0 of the tool. One guide is short, and the other has more details.

The ministry hopes that many companies and customers will use the tool.

1. *1 ministry: a part of a country's government that does one kind of work
2. *2 environment: the air, water, land, plants and animals around us
3. *3 3R actions: things people do to make less trash: reduce (use less), reuse (use again), and recycle
4. *4 recycle: to make something new from a used thing
5. *5 containers: things that hold food or drinks, such as bottles, boxes and trays
6. *6 materials: the things that a product is made from, such as plastic or paper
7. *7 version: one form of something that is a little different from the older form