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Found in beauty products, tiny pieces of plastic which can harm marine life will be banned from sale in the UK from the end of 2017, government will announce

Tiny pieces of plastic in personal beauty products, that end up in the oceans and are swallowed by marine life, will be banned from sale in the UK by the end of 2017, the government is to announce on Saturday.

The move comes just days after MPs called for a ban on so-called microbeads, and sees the UK following in the footsteps of the US, which has banned them beginning in mid-2017. More than 357,000 people signed a petition calling for a UK ban, and environment groups welcomed the news of the ban.

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The US space agency releases pictures and other data from the Juno probe, which has just made its first close approach to Jupiter since going into orbit in July.

The Papahānaumokuākea marine park created by Barack Obama could end up as just a ‘paper park’, argue US and UK marine experts

British and US marine scientists say that the race to designate ever-bigger marine national parks in remote parts of the world could work against conservation.

In an commentary timed to coincide with President Obama’s announcement of the huge extension of a marine park off Hawaii, the authors argue that the creation of very large marine protection areas (Vlmpas) may give the illusion of conservation, when in fact they may be little more than “paper parks”.

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On Thursday Barack Obama made a trip to Midway Atoll, an unincorporated territory of the US and the site of the second world war’s Battle of Midway against the Japanese navy. Obama also focused on conservation of Midway Atoll against climate change. ‘I look forward to knowing that ... 100 years from now, this is a place where people can still come to and see’

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Samsung has halted sales of the Galaxy Note 7 because of battery fire reports.

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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An unidentified sea creature and a shoal of disappearing fish are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Countries from around the Pacific Ocean met to discuss ways of protecting the shrinking supplies but were unable to come to any agreement, officials say

Pacific island states and countries failed on Friday to strike a deal to protect shrinking supplies of tuna and adopt cutbacks following a regional conference, officials said, sparking condemnation from conservationists.

The Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest tuna fishing ground, accounting for almost 60% of the global catch.

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Honduras has become a no-go zone for environmental activists after eight people were murdered in 2015 alone, reports IPS

Chills ran down Tomás Gómez Membreño’s spine when he first heard about the brutal murder of his renowned friend and ally, the Honduran Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, six months ago this week.

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As ARENA hangs in the balance, a $20m Seed Fund has been launched via Clean Energy Innovation Fund to back early-stage clean energy technology, R&D.

Mojo Power says combination of solar and storage means that current energy utility business models cannot survive, because power stations will be "blown into a thousand fragments" and fuel will be effectively free.

30 mayors from cities including London, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, New York, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro call for rapid ratification of Paris climate deal

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has joined forces with city leaders from around the world to call on governments to take urgent action on climate change.

Ahead of a meeting of the G20 group of leading nations in Hangzhou, China, 30 mayors from cities including London, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, New York, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro called on national leaders to work with them to “build a low carbon, climate safe world”.

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Isle of Gigha, Argyll The young otters were having a good time, splashing and paddling and roughhousing; we were enchanted

Having abandoned our bikes by the gate, we follow a cattle trodden path between walls of bracken down to where field meets sand. The silver slip of a beach is postcard perfect, a flawless bleached-bone white. But close up it is busy with the telltale trails of recent visitors: speechmark hoofprints of cattle and the flatfoot waddle of whooper swans, each webbed imprint as large as my palm.

No people, though, which was our aim. We set up camp upon a grassy flat, and wander along the foreshore, picking through tidewrack and pocketing curios: a mermaid’s purse, torn and discarded, scraps of net, pebbled glass.

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Australian network pricing policy is increasingly dysfunctional. At minimum, it's a barrier to innovation and progress. At its worst it means inefficient, high cost electricity. So can we fix it?

Sperm whales, like many other species, use echolocation which can be hampered by noise. Gabriel Barathieu/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Ask most people about pollution, and they will think of rubbish, plastic, oil, smog, and chemicals. After some thought, most folks might also suggest noise pollution.

We’re all familiar with noise around us, and we know it can become a problem – especially if you live near an airport, train station, highway, construction site, or DIY-enthusiast neighbour.

But most people don’t think that noise is a problem under water. If you’ve read Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea you might imagine that, maelstroms excepted, life is pretty quiet in the ocean. Far from it.

When we put a hydrophone (essentially a waterproof microphone) into the water, no matter where in the world’s oceans, it’s never quiet. We hear wind blowing overhead and rain dropping onto the ocean surface – even from hundreds of metres deep. In Australian waters we can also detect the far-off rumbles of earthquakes and the creaking of Antarctic ice thousands of kilometres away.

Wet and noisy

Water is much denser than air, so its molecules are packed tighter together. This means that sound (which relies on molecules vibrating and pushing against one another) propagates much further and faster under water than in air.

This also applies to human-produced sound. Under water we can hear boats and ships and even aeroplanes. Large vessels in deep water can be detected tens of kilometres away. We can be far offshore doing fieldwork, the only people around, with nothing in sight but water in any direction. Yet when we switch the engines off and put a hydrophone into the water, we hear ship noise. Sometimes, whole minutes later, the vessel we heard might appear on the horizon.

Seafarers have known about another source of sound for thousands of years: marine life. Many animals produce sound, from the tiniest shrimp to the biggest whales. Many fish even communicate acoustically under water – during the mating season, the boys start calling. Whales do it, too.

Light doesn’t reach far under water. Near the surface, in clear water, you might be able to peer a few metres, but in the inky depths you can’t see at all. So many marine animals have evolved to “see with sound”, using acoustics for navigation, for detecting predators and prey, and for communicating with other members of their species.

The thing is that man-made sound can interfere with these behaviours.

The effects of noise on marine animals are similar to those on us. If you’ve ever been left with ringing ears after a rock concert, you’ll know that loud noise can temporarily affect your hearing or even damage it permanently.

Noise interferes with communication, often masking it. Can you talk above the background noise in a busy pub? Long-term exposure to noise can cause stress and health issues — in humans and animals alike.

Excessive noise can change marine creatures' habits, too. Like a person who decides to move house rather than live next door to a new airport, animals might choose to desert their habitat if things get too noisy. The question is whether they can find an equally acceptable habitat elsewhere.

There is a lot more research still to be done in this field. Can we predict what noises and vibrations might be released into the marine environment by new machinery or ships? How does sound propagate through different ocean environments? What are the long-term effects on marine animal populations?

One positive is that even though noise pollution travels very fast and very far through the ocean, the moment you switch off the source, the noise is gone. This is very much unlike plastic or chemical pollution, and gives us hope that noise pollution can be successfully managed.

We all need energy, some of which comes from oil and gas; most of our consumer goods are shipped across the seas on container vessels; and many of us enjoy eating seafood caught by noisy fishing boats, some of which even use dynamite to catch fish. We want to protect our borders, making naval operations a necessity. Then there’s the ever growing industry of marine tourism, much of it aboard ever-bigger cruise ships which need large ports in which to berth.

There are a lot of stakeholders in the marine environment, and all speak a different language, all make different claims, and all make noise. Knowing precisely how much noise they make, and how it affects marine life, will help to ensure our oceans and their resources last well into the future.

September 3-11 is SeaWeek 2016, the Australian Association for Environmental Education Marine Educators’ national public awareness campaign.

Christine Erbe receives funding from offshore petroleum companies, defence departments, environmental groups.

Alinta looking at installing one of world's largest battery storage arrays to displace cost of gas it uses for back-up in the Pilbara.

Years of controversy over carbon pricing has both major parties scared of any policy seen to raise electricity prices. The CCA seems to have taken this political situation as a starting point.

The ACCC is taking VW to court. VW image from www.shutterstock.com

Yesterday the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced that it has instituted proceedings against Volkswagen (VW). The ACCC is pursuing VW for allegedly misleading consumers (in contravention of Australian Consumer Law) around emissions from its diesel cars.

In 2015, VW admitted it had installed software in certain diesel-engine cars that ensured the cars met US standards for nitrogen oxide emissions in testing, but turned off in real road driving conditions. This meant that the diesel engines were dirtier than consumers realised. The affected cars were sold globally, including in Australia.

It has been reported that in the United States, VW has agreed to buy back cars affected by the emissions scandal.

In Australia, affected consumers have been offered corrective software, although just what that software will achieve and how well it will do that is disputed.

The ABC reports VW as saying that “the ACCC’s action did not provide any practical benefit to consumers". VW says this is because “the best outcome for customers whose vehicle is affected is to have the voluntary recall service updates installed.”

What’s in it for VW owners?

The ACCC proceedings may appear to offer little direct benefit for disgruntled VW owners who have purchased cars without the features that were represented to them. However, contrary to VW’s suggestion, those consumers might want more by way of redress than the installation of new software to correct the original problem.

The attractions of low-emission diesel engines that were kinder to the environment may well have been central to affected consumers' decision to purchase the VW car models in question. Without those benefits consumers might have purchased a different car.

Such consumers may be disgruntled by finding their VW is not what they had expected and they may also be facing a reduced resale value of their affected car. They may therefore want compensation for loss of value, lost opportunities and even disappointment and distress.

The ACCC is seeking “declarations, pecuniary penalties, corrective advertising, findings of fact and costs” against VW.

Penalties awarded for breaches of the Australian Consumer Law may be considerable, amounting to A$1.1 million for each contravention. However, any penalties that the court determines VW will have to pay for its alleged misleading conduct will be imposed as a punishment for contraventions of the law, not to compensate affected consumers.

It is interesting that the ACCC does not appear to be relying on its powers itself to seek compensation for disgruntled consumers, or to seek a refund and damages on behalf of consumers for possible failures by VW to comply with the consumer guarantee regime in the Australian Consumer Law.

This may be for the practical reason that it would be difficult for the ACCC in this kind of action to show the required levels of causation and loss on the part of individual consumers that would be required in seeking redress on their behalf.

Nonetheless, the ACCC action is not entirely without benefit to consumers, albeit in a more indirect manner. The action sends a strong reminder to businesses operating in Australia about the need for “fair play” in the Australian market.

Moreover, any findings of fact or declarations may be made by a court in response to the ACCC action may be useful in establishing the alleged baseline wrong in private litigation by VW-owning consumers, including under the class action filed in the Federal Court by law firm Maurice Blackburn seeking financial redress for a group of affected consumers.

Jeannie Marie Paterson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Scientists working on the largest study of ticks in dogs have found that almost one third of dogs checked at random across the UK were found to be carrying a tick.

Boulder, Colorado the latest in a series of cities making the pledge to go totally green. There are now 17 in total.