By Christopher Thompson From native species to Indigenous land management and water efficiency: Australia’s role in the extinction crisis A devastating new UN report shows the planet is in serious danger from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems. Here we look at 10 of the key points from the report – and […]

By Christopher Thompson Sure, we all know there’s always more fish in the sea. But there’s also plenty more plastic garbage. Since 1957, scientific gear used to measure plankton in the north Atlantic Ocean has been clogged by plastic trash some 669 times. Almost all of those snarls have occurred since the late 1990s, showcasing […]

By Ryan Johnson Nobody, it seemed, had thought to look before. When two Austrian scientists discovered last year that it’s likely most people have plastic inside their bodies, it wasn’t because they had invented some new, complicated scientific method. It was because they were the first to check. Their approach was simple. They asked eight […]

By Christopher Thompson While banning or reducing the use of plastic bags and straws has become a headline cause for brands, governments and environmental activists in recent years, cigarette butts are actually the most littered waste stream on the planet. With some six trillion butts polluting the Earth each year, smoking isn’t just a public […]

By Ryan Johnson Scientists from the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, in the UK, published a study that coffee is officially considered endangered, as 60 percent of the 124 known species in the world are threatened with extinction because of deforestation, diseases, and climate change. The majority of the wild coffee species globally are found in […]

By Christopher Thompson We use plastic every day for bags, straws and bottles, but have you ever thought about what happens after you throw it away? Plastic trash takes decades to biodegrade, breaking into tiny particles called microplastics, which eventually end up in the ocean. Sea creatures such as turtles, fish and whales then digest […]

By Christopher Thompson It’s the first state to prohibit restaurants, caterers, coffee shops and grocery stores from using the to-go foam containers because they cannot be recycled locally. Democratic governor, Janet Mills signed the bill on Tuesday and the law will come into full effect in 2021. Styrofoam (or polystyrene) is a form of plastic […]

By Christopher Thompson Sainsbury’s, which was recently targeted by environmental campaigners, has announced several measures to tackle plastic waste. The retailer will introduce a trial scheme for customers to ‘pre-cycle’ by providing an area for customers to remove unwanted primary and secondary packaging in store and leave it for recycling. This means that food remains […]

By Ryan Johnson In June 2018, a pilot whale was found suffering in a Thai canal and, after failed rescue attempts, died because of the 80 plastic bags found in its stomach. Fast forward to April 1, when a pregnant sperm whale was found dead on the shores of Sardinia  —  the whale had 50 pounds of plastic garbage […]

By Christopher Thompson Research finds even supposedly pristine region of the Pyrenees is polluted Microplastic is raining down on even remote mountaintops, a new study has revealed, with winds having the capacity to carry the pollution “anywhere and everywhere”. The scientists were astounded by the quantities of microplastic falling from the sky in a supposedly […]