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Tesco to trial a phase-out of single-use 5p plastic bags
Select Tesco stores will sell only reusable bags in a 10-week trial that could lead to the single-use bags being phased out in all of its stores
Shoppers at a handful of Tesco stores in the UK will no longer be able to buy 5p “single-use” plastic carrier bags, in the first such trial by a supermarket.
If successful, it could lead to the bags being phased out completely, less than two years after the law was changed in England to force larger stores to charge for them.
Doggers, drugs and sheep attacks – why Britain’s naughtiest wood is closed
If you go down to Uffmoor Wood today, you’re sure of a big surprise – you won’t be able to get in. Has the Woodland Trust made the right decision to temporarily padlock the Worcestershire woodland?
It’s Britain’s baddest woodland. Two hundred acres of bluebell-infested forest so naughty that the Woodland Trust has taken the rare step of shutting it down until it improves.
Uffmoor Wood, near Halesowen in the West Midlands, is padlocked as of today, after becoming a focal point for sheep-worrying, dirt bike scrambling, dog fouling, drug peddling and sex dogging.
Continue reading...EU declared Monsanto weedkiller safe after intervention from controversial US official
Exclusive: European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking glyphosate to cancer following counsel with an EPA official allegedly linked to the company and who figures in more than 20 lawsuits
The European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking a Monsanto weedkiller to cancer after counsel from a US Environmental Protection Agency officer allegedly linked to the company.
Jess Rowlands, the former head of the EPA’s cancer assessment review committee (CARC), who figures in more than 20 lawsuits and had previously told Monsanto he would try to block a US government inquiry into the issue, according to court documents.
London's Bank junction closed to most traffic as part of new safety scheme
Cyclists hail experimental scheme – that sees the dangerous intersection closed to all but buses, cyclists and pedestrians – as a turning point
Bank junction, one of London’s most dangerous intersections, was closed this week to all but buses, and people on bikes and foot, from 7am to 7pm on weekdays, in an 18-month experimental scheme that could be as ground breaking as New York’s Times Square or Paris’s Left Bank.
In 2015 Ying Tao was hit from behind by a lorry and killed as she cycled across the six-armed crossroads. Cyclists make up to 50% of Bank traffic during peak times, and from 2010-14, 46 cyclists were injured at the junction, six seriously. There were also eight serious pedestrian casualties in that time.
Continue reading...Shorten: Recognition first, then treaty
Calls to reform food system: 'Factory farming belongs in a museum'
Stop the Machine aims to put an end to methods of farming that are endangering biodiversity and wildlife the world over
We can feed an extra 4 billion people a year if we reject the bloated and wasteful factory farming systems that are endangering our planet’s biodiversity and wildlife, said farming campaigner Philip Lymbery on Monday night, launching a global campaign to Stop the Machine.
At present, 35% of the world’s cereal harvest and most of its soya meal is fed to industrially reared animals rather than directly to humans. This is a “wasteful and inefficient practice” because the grain-fed animals contribute much less back in the form of milk, eggs and meat than they consume, according to Lymbery, the chief executive of Compassion in World Farming (CIWF). “The food industry seems to have been hijacked by the animal feed industry,” he said.
How did whales become so large? Scientists dive into marine mystery
Changes in food distribution and not falling ocean temperatures could hold key to shift towards giant lengths
The blue whale has a body the length of a jet airliner, a heart the size of a car, and a tongue the same weight as an elephant.
Now researchers say they might have solved the mystery of why baleen whales – a group that includes these blue beasts, the largest animals on the planet – became so large.
Continue reading...Salad days soon over: consumers throw away 40% of bagged leaves
Exclusive: Britons fail to eat 178m bags of salad every year, say Tesco and government waste body Wrap, in study highlighting food waste
Britons throw away 40% of the bagged salad they buy every year, according to the latest data, with 37,000 tonnes – the equivalent of 178m bags – going uneaten every year.
The figures from the government’s waste advisory body Wrap are being published on Wednesday by the supermarket giant Tesco to highlight that prepared salads are still among the UK’s most wasted household foods. Past studies have shown that the average UK family throws away £700 of food each year.
Continue reading...Meet 'Big Don', the 90kg rescue turtle released on World Turtle Day – video
Crowds cheer as ‘Big Don’, a massive sea turtle, is released off the Florida Keys on World Turtle Day after being rehabilitated from injuries from an encounter with a fishing line. The 200-pound (91 kilogram) loggerhead turtle was nursed back to health with antibiotics, vitamins and a healthy diet of squid and fish
Continue reading...Consumer bills to jump as networks score court victory over regulator
The cuckoo is back and all's right with the world
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire This is the cow parsley moment, its blossom making foamy bow waves against hawthorn hedges along the road
The lanes are luminous with the white pulse of May: cow parsley, hawthorn, hogweed, garlic, stichwort. In fields there are pale lambs and dandelion clocks and stands of horse chestnut in candle. White on green. Green on white.
It is evening and the birds are fractious. I am listening to an old story so nearly forgotten that its retelling sounds strange and new.
Continue reading...Solar now Queensland’s largest power station
AGL makes Executive Team appointments
Autonomous vehicle trials to ramp up as national guidelines published
Clean Energy Seed Fund raises $26m – a “vote of confidence” in sector
Stunning new lows in cost of large scale solar and battery storage
Ausnet, and the case for a rethink on who pays for new grid connections
How clean are Australia’s ‘clean coal’ power stations?
Trump’s clean energy budget cuts would ‘devastate’ emerging economic sector
Coalition seeks applications for solar thermal funds by end of year
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