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EU challenges UK to 'race to the top' on plastics reduction
Brussels proposes ban on plastic straws and cutlery and calls out Brexiter Michael Gove
Brussels has challenged the UK’s environment secretary, Michael Gove, to try to outdo it in an environmental “race to the top” as it proposed a ban on plastic straws, cutlery, plates, cotton buds and balloon sticks.
Frans Timmermans, the European commission’s first vice-president, directly addressed Gove, a fervent Brexiter, as he unveiled details of the planned prohibition, along with measures designed to reduce the use of plastic takeaway containers and drinking cups.
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Huge rise in food redistribution to people in need across UK
Charity FareShare is feeding almost a quarter of a million people a week with food that would otherwise go to waste – a 60% rise since last year
The UK’s largest food redistribution charity is helping to feed a record 772,000 people a week – 60% more than the previous year – with food that would otherwise be wasted, new figures reveal.
One in eight people in the UK go hungry every day – with the most needy increasingly dependent on food banks – yet perfectly good food is wasted every day through the food production supply chain.
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Hand mowing begins as mist still hangs above the meadow – Country Diary, 1 June 1918
1 June 1918: It was a small field, hand-mown; swathes were heavy, deadening the sweep of scythes, but tall wild parsley, oat-grass spiked almost like corn
Surrey
The morning sun was yet red on the horizon and mist hung above the lower meadows when the first mowing of grass began. Scent came across the lane fresher and sweeter than the odour from the thorns. It was a small field, hand-mown; swathes were heavy, deadening the sweep of scythes, but tall wild parsley, oat-grass spiked almost like corn, and thicker fescue all lay low, while the larks went up singing. In the wood hard by other birds started together, finches on the lower branches, throstles on the high boughs; a jay cluttered where the grove is thick, a cuckoo called, then, showing as big as a hawk, flew to the other side. The air was so slight as not to sway even the light stems of birch trees; when a bird settled after flying the bough was set in motion like a swing, and there was so much flitting to and fro that the trees everywhere, even oaks in full leaf, were visibly alive.
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Continue reading...Honduran villagers take legal action to stop mining firm digging up graves for gold
Families face pressure to decide the fate of their relatives’ grave, dividing the community of Azacualpa where as many as 350 bodies have already been exhumed
Nothing is sacred in the path of gold miners in northwestern Honduras – not even the dead.
A transnational mining company, Aura Minerals, has been digging up graves in the 200-year-old cemetery near the community of Azacualpa, La Union, to clear the way to dig for gold.
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Know your NEM: Wind versus solar
Flash floods in Maryland leaves main street underwater – video
Flood waters and heavy rain has completely submerged the main street of the historic Ellicott City in Maryland. Authorities were assessing the damage after the flood waters swept away parked cars on Sunday.
Continue reading...Return of the bison: herd makes surprising comeback on Dutch coast
Endangered species can thrive in habitats other than forests, paving way for their return
Eighty years after they were hunted to extinction, the successful reintroduction of a herd of wild European bison onto the dunes of the Dutch coast is paving the way for their return across the continent.
The largest land-living animal in Europe was last seen in the Netherlands centuries ago, and was wiped out on the continent by 1927. Despite successful efforts to breed the species again in the wilds of Poland in the 1950s, and renewed efforts in the last decade in western Europe, the European bison remains as endangered as the black rhino.
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