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Last year the ABC launched its War on Waste series. It was a campaign to make us stop and think about how we live, look at how we could re-use and recycle items in our homes, and cut down on unnecessary waste. In today's episode we head to Sydney Markets, Australia's largest fruit and vegetable market, where they take recycling very seriously.

Jenny Jones says the UK must respond proactively to news that China has banned imports of millions of tons of plastic waste

This could be the year we start burning more of our waste than recycling it (China’s plastic waste ban ‘creates a crisis for UK local authorities’, 3 January). There are already three English regions where incineration (energy from waste) has become the most likely way for councils to dispose of our waste and the amount that we recycle has flatlined in all but one area of the UK. The exception to this is Wales, partly because they use the incineration ash to make concrete and count this as recycling. We need to urgently cut down on how much we use and build the recycling infrastructure to deal with the waste ourselves. We need regulation to ensure that what we use contains a minimum percentage of recycled materials, so that we can build up the market for such products. Most urgent of all is a charge on incineration to remove the perverse incentive for councils to burn, rather than recycle.
Jenny Jones
Green party, House of Lords

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A year of unusually dry weather means parts of England are facing summer drought with groundwater and some reservoirs well below normal

A year of dry weather, only slightly alleviated by recent storms, has left much of south-east England facing drought this summer.

Groundwater and some reservoir levels are well below normal and only above-average rainfall in the next three months will refill them, officials warned on Friday. One water company, Southern Water, has applied for a drought permit to allow them to take more water than normally allowed from the River Medway in Kent, to try to avoid water restrictions for households in the summer.

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The Oxford Farming Conference and its upstart sibling, the Oxford Real Farming Conference, seem poles apart. But faced with big changes, from Brexit to the future of meat itself, a united front may be the best option

It’s a brisk five minute stroll up the high street to get from the Oxford Farming Conference to its upstart younger sibling the Oxford Real Farming Conference – but a much longer mental leap.

Stately, careful and well-connected, the OFC has been going for 80 years. Sponsored by Big Agriculture businesses such as chemistry multinational BASF and farm machinery specialists Massey Ferguson, the cloakroom creaks with waxed cotton and quilted Barbours, while the audience is overwhelmingly male, white and upwards of 40. The great and good – royalty, government ministers, international politicians – come to speak to a polite, attentive audience; this is the thoughtful end of commercial British farming, brought together over bacon baps and craft beer.

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The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

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Although the contamination rate has fallen from a half since a partial EU ban the insecticides remain in the farmed environment posing a serious risk to bees

Almost a quarter of British honey samples remain contaminated after a partial ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, new research has revealed.

The contamination rate has fallen – it was more than half before the ban – but the study shows that the potent insecticides remain prevalent in the farmed environment and still pose a serious risk to bees and other vital pollinators.

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They're not dead, just chilling in cool temperatures in the US.

On a busy Guildford high street reaction to the proposed ‘latte levy’ is mixed. While many welcome the move to change peoples’ habits, for some, already feeling the squeeze of a weak pound, the 25p hit is too high

Turn any corner in the busy town centre of Guildford on a weekday morning, and someone is carrying a disposable cup bearing the logo of one of the major chains.

Each minute in the UK about 500 of these used coffee cups are thrown away. Every year consumers use and dispose of 2.5bn of them. The vast majority are not recycled.

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Global warming is predicted to push clouds higher in the sky. One scientist hopes to understand the future of our forests by suspending a vast fog-catching mesh in the Peruvian jungle

What will happen if climate change pushes clouds higher into the sky, as models predict? One ecosystem that will be seriously affected will be cloud forests – tropical jungles persistently bathed in fog.

Until now, little research had been done on the likely impacts of rising clouds, but one scientist is planning to change that using an enormous curtain strung up in the middle of the forest.

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The beams will be shone on a hillside to see if they scare the birds away from sheep flocks.

On 5 January 1993 an oil tanker ran aground off Shetland spilling 85,000 tonnes of crude oil.

After 10 years, a team at Cardiff University helps identify a process to speed up drug development.

In UK 2.5bn disposable cups are thrown away each year, of which less than 0.25% are recycled, according to environmental audit committee report

MPs are calling for a 25p charge on takeaway coffee in a move that could see disposable cups banned in five years time.

In the UK 2.5bn takeaway coffee cups are used and thrown away each year – enough to stretch around the world five-and-a-half-times. The UK produces 30,000 tonnes of coffee cup waste each year, according to a report published by MPs on the environmental audit committee on Friday.

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The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder today announced the sale of 5 GL of allocation water from the Gwydir.

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder today announced the sale of 5 GL of allocation water from the Gwydir.

The UK throws away 2.5 billion non-recyclable coffee cups every year, MPs say.

• Ryan Zinke unveils plan to offer leases in Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic
• Environmental groups and some Republicans lead outcry

The Trump administration has unveiled a plan that would open almost all US offshore territory to oil and gas drilling, including previously protected areas of the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans.

Related: Trump plan to shrink ocean monuments threatens vital ecosystems, experts warn

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For years, a booming long-nosed fur seal population has been devastating fishing businesses in the Coorong. But could the tables be about to turn?

Simon and Jasmine Dale spent six years building their home, which is now the subject of a crowdfunding appeal

An eco-home labelled the “cheapest house ever built in the western hemisphere” on the Channel 4 programme Grand Designs, has been destroyed by a fire.

The three-bedroomed house, which is based in the sustainable community of Lammas in rural Pembrokeshire, was featured on the TV programme in 2016 after its owners, Simon and Jasmine Dale, spent just £27,000 building it.

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Repeat bouts of warmer seawater are posing a significant challenge to the world's tropical corals.