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The government wants to double the charge and extend it to all shops in England, to cut plastic use.

Education secretary asks headteachers to consider using sustainable alternatives

Schools are being encouraged to set themselves the target of eliminating their reliance on single-use plastics by 2022.

The education secretary, Damian Hinds, has urged headteachers in England to consider using sustainable alternatives instead of non-recyclable plastic for items such as straws, bottles, bags and food packaging.

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The urban heat island effect, and the impact it's having on our quality of life, is not just evident in our cities but also our towns.

The Australian Government labelled the decision as "extremely disappointing" and Greenpeace is warning most whale populations have not recovered from years of over-fishing.

California regulator ARB divvied out nearly 679,500 California Carbon Offsets (CCOs) this week in the last issuance of 2018, as a single forestry project developer took home most of the credits.

Federal environment department publishes proposal on Christmas Eve and public has only 10 business days to comment

The oil and gas company Woodside Energy has applied for federal approval for dredging and pipeline construction in waters near the Western Australian Dampier Archipelago marine reserves.

The company has sought the approval as part of its proposed Scarborough gas project, an offshore development about 380km from the Burrup peninsula that would use a 430km pipeline to transport gas to its existing Pluto liquefied natural gas facility on the peninsula.

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Heading off on a bushwalk in a national park over the summer break? Don't be tempted to bushwhack it. Research shows many walkers don't realise the danger of straying off the beaten track. Edmund Goh, Deputy Director, Markets and Services Research Centre, Edith Cowan University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Admirers of wildlife photography can choose their favourite for the Lumix-sponsored award from 25 images pre-selected by London’s Natural History Museum. The institution made its selection taken from over 45,000 submissions from 95 countries

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The Gulf of Maine’s rapidly warming waters draws in larger numbers of Kemp’s ridley turtles, enticing them to stay longer

At the New England Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital in a repurposed shipyard building south of Boston, the casualties of climate change swim in tanks as they recover after being pulled stunned from the beach.

Every year, as autumn turns to winter and ocean temperatures off Massachusetts drop below 10C (50F), dead, dying and stricken sea turtles wash up on the shores of Cape Cod as those shelled reptiles that have failed to migrate south start to die in the chilly waters.

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One conservation group warns that the move shows "a troubling disregard for international rule".

Study finds just 12 of the most imperilled species are listed under national environment laws as critically endangered

More than 50 Australian plant species are under threat of extinction within the next decade, according to a major study of the country’s threatened flora.

Just 12 of the most at-risk species were found to be listed as critically endangered under national environment laws – the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – and 13 had no national threatened listing at all.

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Japan will resume hunting in its waters in July but will end controversial expeditions to the Southern ocean

Japan is to leave the International Whaling Commission and resume commercial whaling for the first time in more than 30 years, the government said on Wednesday, in a move that has drawn international criticism.

The country’s fleet will resume commercial operations in July next 2019, the government’s chief spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said of the decision to defy 1986 global ban on commercial whaling.

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The year 2018 provided plenty to chew on if you're interested in science and the environment.

The most memorable images in 2018 spanned the Australian Open, Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Prince Harry and Meghan’s visit, and the leadership coup against Malcolm Turnbull

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In healthy oxygen-rich rivers these mussels can live up to 130 years

The extraordinary life cycle of the freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera margaritifera enabled it to thrive in rivers across most of northern Europe and north America including the UK.

The adult mussels live in gravel on the bottom of rivers with about one third of their shell sticking out into the stream. Once a year they release millions of larvae into the water. Survival depends on the unlikely chance that a passing juvenile salmon or brown trout will swallow them so that the larvae can clamp themselves on the fish’s gills and grow in the oxygen rich environment.

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Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical that can kill germs. It is found in two things many ants love to eat: nectar and honey dew. Tanya Latty, Senior Lecturer, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Species collapse in Botswana | Protestant propaganda | Socialist tunes | Toft and Newton and other place names

Here in Botswana, where trophy hunting was banned in 2014, the elephant population has exceeded the country’s carrying capacity by 300%. They are now susceptible to species collapse due to drought or competition with humans. Is there no solution apart from promoting or banning trophy hunting (Letters, 21 December)?
Gontse Kgosiemang
Gaborone, Botswana

• Hopefully, the passing of Christmas means we’ll not hear more spurious claims linking it to supposed pagan festivals. Those claims were first made by Puritan preachers in the 17th century to undermine what they saw as a Catholic celebration. There was no evidence for it then and none now.
Dr Michael Paraskos
London

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Conflict on the Korean peninsula was one of the biggest international issues of 2018.

A small, invasive wasp is threatening the cultivation of chestnuts in Spain.

From Wilsons Promontory to the Royal, you love the open spaces of our national parks – but you’re worried about them, too

There’s no doubt you love Australia’s national parks. When we put the call out for readers to send in stories about the parks they loved, we received lots of submissions. There were clear favourites – there were a number of stories about Wilsons Promontory as well as the Blue Mountains, Girraween, Kosciuszko, Lamington, the Alpine and the Royal national parks.

And there were common themes in your responses: many readers said how glorious it was being out in nature, imagining life before colonisation, when Indigenous Australians looked after the land. But some voiced their concerns about the cuts to national parks funding, and many were worried about whether these treasured areas would be protected for future generations.

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