By Ryan Johnson Government confirms ban on sale and use of items from April next year Plastic straws and drink stirrers, and cotton buds with plastic stems will be banned from sale and use in England from next April, the government has confirmed. The move, which has been in the offing for more than a […]

By Christopher Thompson After the release of alarming new figures showing the extent of plastic pollution on Italian beaches, and the sad news that another whale has washed up in Italy with a stomach full of plastic, we look at what Italy is doing to clean up its coastline. Environmental campaigners in Italy raised the […]

By Ryan Johnson It’s well known that ocean plastics harm marine life, but could the eight million metric tons of plastic that enters the seas each year also make it harder for us to breathe? That’s the troubling implication of a new study published in Communications Biology Tuesday, which found that plastic pollution can have […]

By Christopher Thompson Single-use plastic is clogging oceans and landfills. The industry that makes it has waged a decades-long campaign to keep it on the market.New York’s Suffolk County had a trash problem. Facing brimming landfills and public pressure, legislators took a first-in-the-nation step: They banned plastic bags. But what the county saw as part […]

By Ryan Johnson It’s impossible to imagine modern life without plastics. From the moment the day begins, we are using plastic. It’s in our toothbrushes, our shower curtains and our phones. We use it on the way to work in bus seats, car dashboards, and bicycle helmets. We see it at lunch in takeout containers […]

By Ryan Johnson A World Wildlife study finds the equivalent of a dump truck full of plastic waste is dumped into the water every minute. So the WWF has launched an initiative to cut plastic waste by 10 million tons. Coca-Cola, which has signed on to the program, produces 3 million tons of plastic waste. […]

By Christopher Thompson Production must end now, says first ever estimate of plastic’s cradle-to-grave impact The proliferation of single-use plastic around the world is accelerating climate change and should be urgently halted, a report warns. Plastic production is expanding worldwide, fuelled in part by the fracking boom in the US. The report says plastic contributes […]

By Christopher Thompson After 12 days of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations, countries have agreed to treat plastic as hazardous waste. Germany is considering a ban that would go even further. Almost every country in the world, except the United States, agreed to a deal on Friday that would sharply reduce the […]

By Ryan Johnson One of the challenges with plastics is that even those marketed as recyclables are not used again. Only less than a third of recyclable plastic is repurposed after the recycling process, and the rest are either disposed of as non-recyclable waste or incinerated. A new breakthrough, however, offers hope to this problem. […]

By Christopher Thompson Plastic pollution poses serious health risks to wildlife globally, affecting a wide range of species including whales, turtles, fish and birds. On World Migratory Bird Day, celebrated on 11 May, two UN wildlife treaties and conservationists around the world are calling for urgent action to stop plastic pollution by highlighting its negative […]