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Five surprising objects that contain plastic – with toxic implications for the environment

Last Tuesday, Waitrose announced plans to remove all disposable coffee cups from their stores by autumn of this year – customers will have to bring a reusable one of their own. Despite their cardboard appearance, coffee cups are actually lined with polyethylene and are hard to recycle. The cups gradually break down to form microplastics, which make their way into our waterways and food supply.

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Firm joins PG Tips in dropping synthetic sealants as other major producers look to make bags 100% biodegradable

The UK’s longest-established Fairtrade tea brand has become the latest to ditch synthetic sealants in its teabags, amid mounting consumer pressure on manufacturers to help cut down on plastic pollution.

Clipper Teas – which champions the unbleached teabag – hopes to introduce a new, fully biodegradable bag free of polypropylene, a sealant used across the industry to ensure bags hold their shape, by the summer.

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Fund to be split into three pots to tackle ocean pollution, research and waste management

The government has earmarked £61.4m from the public purse to fight the rising tide of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.

Theresa May announced the fund ahead of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London next week.

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A combination of the beast from the east and a dismal bank holiday weekend has put the nation’s crops on hold

Last year, asparagus growers were harvesting as early as 8 April. This spring, they are not expecting to harvest their open-field crop until the last week of April – a week later than the official start of the season, St George’s Day, 23 April. Welcome to just one of the consequences of Britain’s disastrously delayed spring.

“We have had a very challenging time,” said Guy Smith, vice president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU). “March breezed in with the ‘beast from the east’ and went out with the worst bank holiday on record.” For asparagus-lovers there is at least an upside. “The combination has to be right for the crowns to push through,” explained Per Hogberg, of grower Wealmoor. “The air temperature has to be at least 12C, while the soil temperature should be between 8C and 10C. With warmer weather expected, consumers can expect a bumper crop in mid-May,” he said.

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Last August, holidaymakers in East Sussex fell ill after a poisonous yellow cloud spread across the sky. What was it, and where did it come from?

Mark Sawyer has worked for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for nearly 30 years, and since 2001 he’s been the full-time coxswain at the Eastbourne lifeboat station. Shortly after 5pm on the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend last August, he received a report from the coastguard in Southampton about an incident at a beach seven miles west of his station. “The call we got was that there had either been a fire or an explosion at Birling Gap, and they’d got 50-plus casualties suffering from smoke inhalation or burns.” There was what looked like a layer of thick smoke hanging just above the sea.

Birling Gap is a popular National Trust spot between Beachy Head and Seaford, a dip in the chalk cliffs of the Seven Sisters, with a steel staircase leading down to a pebble beach. At low tide there is sand and rockpools; on the cliffs above there is a visitor centre, cafe, car park and coastguard station.

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Dolbenmaen, Gwynedd: As a climber, I’d often pass within metres of the peregrine falcons on the cliff face, harsh chattering between the pair echoing from the rock walls

The huge dolerite cliff at the head of the valley glows in afternoon light. A pale green algal cast accentuates white streaks and fresh spatterings. This is peregrine and raven territory, the latter maintaining a respectful distance from the former. They’ve been present here for at least 50 years.

I first saw the falcons at their inaccessible eyrie under the great overhang in 1968. That was the time when peregrine and raven populations in Wales were recovering from dramatic postwar declines caused by organochlorine pesticides, used in dusting racing pigeons for fleas, treating crops, dipping sheep for parasites. The DDT, particularly, concentrated in the birds’ food chains, led to the thinning of eggshells and repeated brood failures.

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Slovakia broke EU law by imposing a tax on sold or unused EU carbon allowances, Europe’s top court has ruled, a verdict that could cost the government tens of millions of euros.

EDF's Global Climate team seeks a Senior Analyst to provide critical research and analysis in support of our U.S. focused efforts to advance market-based policy solutions to address climate change. As a key player on a growing team, the Senior Analyst will inform our advocacy as we work to strengthen and expand carbon pricing regimes at the state level, and begin to lay the foundation for ambitious carbon pricing policy at the federal level.

The Bank seeks a Climate policy post-doctoral research contractual to work in partnership with stakeholders across the IDB Group, Latin America and the Caribbean, and provide excellent technical support in designing, executing, procuring, monitoring and disseminating cutting-edge and relevant research to inform the design of effective and acceptable climate policies in the region.

The concept of a marine heatwave is relatively new to science. In fact, climate scientists have focused their attention on terrestrial heatwaves to date.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

EU carbon prices ended higher for the sixth straight session on Friday, briefly climbing above €14 and near their seven-year high, though some warned weak auction demand could soon signal a correction.

Shipping firms to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as part of historic agreement

Carbon dioxide from ships at sea will be regulated for the first time following a historic agreement reached after two weeks of detailed talks in London.

Shipping companies will halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 under the plan, brokered by the International Maritime Organization and binding across its 170 member states.

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The Alaska government produced a draft climate change policy this week that instructs the US state to begin looking at how carbon pricing may help achieve the state’s climate goals, though the text remained sparse on details.

Call by Cristiana Pașca Palmer comes ahead of a major biodiversity conference in Beijing in 2020

At least half of the world should be made more nature-friendly by 2050 to ensure the wellbeing of humanity, according to the UN chief leading efforts to create a new global pact on biodiversity.

The call to strengthen the world’s life support system comes ahead of a major conference in Beijing in 2020 that many hope will be the biodiversity equivalent of the Paris climate agreement.

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A new study shows that some species may become victims of their own prestige.

Karen state activists mourning community leader Saw O Moo, who campaigned to protect a local forest and for residents’ land rights

Indigenous activists in Myanmar’s Karen state are mourning the killing of a community leader who campaigned for a peace park to protect a local forest and its residents’ land rights.

Saw O Moo was ambushed by government troops on 5 April as he was riding a motorbike with a soldier from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), a rebel group that is fighting for autonomy.

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Both the New Jersey Assembly and Senate approved two bills on Thursday to expand the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) for conventional and solar renewable energy, as well as establishing a Zero Emission Certificate (ZEC) programme aimed at supporting struggling nuclear plants.

Governments at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) adopted on Friday an initial strategy to address international shipping emissions, including setting a 2050 target to cut emissions by at least 50% under 2008 levels.

Orphaned baby elephants and mating hamlets are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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