Today’s Solutions: December 05, 2025

Rice cultivation is deeply rooted in the Vietnamese culture. And so is the habit to burn the rice plant waste after every harvest. In Vietnam about 20 million tons of rice straw go up in smoke each year. That’s bad news for the environment, because the burning releases toxic greenhouse gases, but it’s also unhealthy for the Vietnamese because every harvest season they breathe in that smoke. Trang Tran,  a social entrepreneur from Vietnam, is hard at work offering Vietnamese farmers an alternative to burning their straw: she’s teaching them to use the straw as a nourishing base for mushroom cultivation. If the farmers succeed in growing mushrooms several times a year in their straw, they can sell those to Tran’s company, thus doubling their income.

Solutions News Source Print this article
More of Today's Solutions

Europe’s low-carbon future: Denmark’s North Sea oil field is now a carb...

Once a symbol of fossil fuel extraction, the remote Nini oil field in the North Sea is preparing for a new role: storing millions ...

Read More

Grace Richardson makes history as first openly gay Miss England: ‘I’ve achiev...

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM When Grace Richardson took the stage at the Miss England final in Wolverhampton, she wasn’t just chasing a ...

Read More

World’s first hydrogen-powered cargo vessel to set sail in Paris this year

In a world's first, a commercial hydrogen-powered cargo vessel will make its maiden voyage later this year. Developed by French shipowner Compagnie Fluvial Transport ...

Read More

A guide to self-kindness: transforming negative self-talk into positive affir...

As we go through the motions of daily life, it's tempting to listen to our inner critic's constant commentary. Negative self-talk, or the constant ...

Read More