The Japan Association for Greening Deserts is promoting the planting of poplars and fruit trees like saji in five areas of the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia, China. More than 10 million trees have been planted so far.

About 20 years ago, Toyama Masao, the association director, became one of the first researchers to study the water-retention properties of high polymer plastics. Toyama is also an expert in applying agricultural techniques to arid areas, and has made a name for himself by using his plastic to change desert into farmland. He calculated the amount of water-retaining plastic to be mixed in earth under specific conditions, pulverized the plastic into granules, and developed technology that can be used to reverse desertification.

He says, "Plastic that absorbs water breaks down into hydrogen and carbon after about six months, so it has no negative impact on the environment."

Toyama has worked in Mexico, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, helping to transform deserts into land suitable for agriculture.

"Each desert has its own characteristics. The desert in Mexico is influenced by the ocean nearby, while Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have hot, exceptionally dry deserts. The Gobi Desert is cold for much of the time." He adds in a modest tone of voice, "I have enough experience now to be able to make a desert bloom, wherever I'm asked to go."

If someone said your car could run on a fuel made from used cooking oil, you'd say they were dreaming. But it's true—a bio-diesel fuel called E-OIL lets you do just that, and it emits few pollutants.

The city of Kyoto has been running all of its garbage trucks on E-OIL for the last five years. The trucks—there are about 220 of them—used to burn diesel fuel, but no modifications were needed to get them using the new fuel. Now they emit no sulfur oxides, and the black smoke coming from their exhaust pipes has been cut to one-sixth.

Researchers in different parts of the world are looking for ways to use a bio-fuel made from vegetable oil, but E-OIL is the first fuel to be made from waste cooking oil.

E-OIL was developed by Lonford Development Ltd. Hayafuji Shigeto, the company president, says, "Right from the beginning, our goal was to find a way to reuse waste cooking oil." He became involved in environmental protection efforts after becoming convinced something had to be done to clean up Japan's biggest lake, Lake Biwa, which was polluted with wastewater that included cooking oil. (He grew up near Lake Biwa, which is located in Shiga Prefecture.)

Finding an adequate supply of waste cooking oil was the biggest hurdle, but the problem was solved when Kyoto's city government and residents agreed to come on board. Now that he has succeeded in Kyoto, Hayafuji travels to different parts of Japan, eager to get more people using E-OIL, a new type of energy for the future.