The Guardian

Coffee company Nespresso – part of Swiss multinational Nestlé – is to trial a scheme for consumers to recycle their used aluminium capsules for the first time in the UK, in the face of a growing environmental backlash against increasingly popular single-serve pods, many of which end up in landfill.

A six-month pilot, starting this week in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, will allow Nespresso Club members to recycle their used capsules through their council household recycling service, using special purple bags provided by the company. The borough’s 190,000 residents will only be able to put out capsules made by Nespresso.

Visitors to the website on Saturday found it was ‘undergoing changes’ to reflect the agency’s ‘new direction’, as thousands protest climate inaction

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s main climate change website is “undergoing changes” to better reflect “the agency’s new direction” under Donald Trump.

Related: The American people – not Big Oil – must decide our climate future | Senator Bernie Sanders and Mark Jacobson

$4m mission in Gulf of California aims to rescue world’s most endangered sea mammal – with help from US navy dolphins

Scientists are finalising plans to make a last-ditch attempt to save the world’s most endangered marine mammal, the vaquita porpoise. They believe there are now fewer than 30 of these distinctive cetaceans left in the Gulf of California.

Only by catching the remaining creatures and protecting them in a sanctuary can the vaquita be saved, it is argued.

Bret Stephens’ first piece for the Times showed exactly why some climate realists are canceling their subscriptions

Yesterday, New York Times subscribers were treated to an email alert announcing the first opinion column from Bret Stephens, who they hired away from the Wall Street Journal. Like all Journal opinion columnists who write about climate change, Stephens has said a lot of things on the subject that could charitably be described as ignorant and wrong. Thus many Times subscribers voiced bewilderment and concern about his hiring, to which the paper’s public editor issued a rather offensive response.

Justifying the critics, here’s how the paper announced Stephens’ first opinion column in an email alert (usually reserved for important breaking news):

Ribblehead, Yorkshire Dales Willing helpers hold the week-old lambs until Rodney is ready to dock their tails

Pliers and rubber rings, a tub of aquamarine dye, plastic ID ear tags … Rodney Beresford lays out the tools of his trade on a flat-topped boulder. It’s lambing time, and he is here in the sheepfold to dock tails and castrate the days-old males.

For once the shepherd is not alone, however. For 10 years Rodney has been offering refugees and asylum seekers “a day out to remember”, as part of a Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust project. Today’s helper-guests, from St Augustine’s Centre in Halifax, have spent their morning searching his pasture for new-born lambs, guided by Rodney’s grandchildren, Lucy, eight, and Katie, five. Success? Two sets of twins born naturally – “doing grand”.

Humpback whales charge orcas in an ‘altruistic’ behavior that pushes the predators away from their favorite prey: seals, dolphins, sea lions and young whales. A pod of nine orcas have killed four grey whales in seven days in the bay

A group of killer whales in Monterey Bay killed four gray whales in a week, a phenomenon one researcher hasn’t seen in her 30-year career

In an “unprecedented” rash of attacks, a pod of killer whales in Monterey Bay, California, has killed four gray whales in a week, including a calf whose killing was captured on video, according to one marine biologist.

Related: An extraordinary battle between sperm whales and orcas – in pictures

Southern highlands landholders unite to battle proposal that would threaten the bore water they rely on

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The sun has not long disappeared below the rolling hills of the highlands when the locals begin to muster.

There are angry mutterings and shaking of heads among the 50-odd filling the old village hall in Exeter, two hours south of Sydney.

In Orlando, a group of pedal-powered volunteers are transforming lawns into organic gardens, to create ‘hyper-local’ food networks that will boost food security

The future of the immaculate British lawn is under threat, claims a new report from the Royal Horticultural Society: rising temperatures will deliver a triple-threat of dryness, weeds and pests that gardeners will have to navigate if they want to maintain their manicured emerald rectangles. Some reports have even suggested we do away with lawns altogether and just substitute them with fake green turf (gasp!) to avoid the inevitable hassle.

But will it be worth it? Let’s be honest, what do lawns really do, anyway—other than satisfy that odd part of the human ego that thrives off the sight of evenly-clipped grass? In fact, how about we really shake things up and just turn our lawns into vegetable patches, instead?

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

New rules to limit air pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and mercury could save more than 20,000 lives a year, say NGOs

Power plants in the EU will have to cut the amount of toxic pollutants such as nitrogen oxides they emit under new rules approved by member states and widely applauded by environmental groups.

Friday’s decision imposes stricter limits on emissions of pollutants such as nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, mercury and particulate matter from large combustion plants in Europe.

A hellbender salamander, a red kite in flight and a hawksbill turtle are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

The climate event that helped supercharge global warming to record levels in 2015 and 2016 is 50-60% likely in 2017, says World Meteorological Organization

The El Niño climate event that helped supercharge global warming to record levels in 2015 and 2016 is set for an early return, according to a forecast from the World Meteorological Organization.

Related: What is El Niño?

Studies show that oxybenzone, a common chemical found particularly in spray-on sunscreens, contributes to coral bleaching and leaves reefs deformed

For years we’ve been told to slap on sunscreen to protect against the harmful effects of the sun’s UV rays. But eco-conscious beachgoers may want to take care with their sunscreen this summer, as studies show that many contemporary sunscreens pose a threat to the ocean environment.

Oxybenzone is a common chemical found in all types of sunscreen, but particularly in the spray-on variety, that researchers have found harms coral, and is in high concentrations at some of the most world’s most popular reefs.

President expected to sign executive order to review areas potentially rich in fossil fuels that were put out of reach of drilling by the Obama administration

Communities along the east coast are steeling themselves for a fresh round of angst and protest over offshore drilling, with Donald Trump set to throw open vast swathes of the Atlantic seaboard to oil and gas companies.

Related: The climate change battle dividing Trump’s America

OzHarvest Market in Kensington offers donated or surplus grocery products that would otherwise be thrown out

Australia’s first rescued-food supermarket has opened in Sydney, providing donated or surplus produce to customers on a pay-what-they-can basis, in an effort to reduce the estimated $8bn to $10bn of food discarded each year.

The OzHarvest Market provides food, from blemished apples to frozen sausage rolls, as well as other items such as sanitary products and toothpaste, which would otherwise be thrown out, sourced from the excess of major supermarket chains, caterers and cafes.

Spanish photographer Jordi Ruiz Cirera documents the fallout from Paraguay’s booming agriculture sector, where families are forced from their homes and rivers are filled with pesticides

Here’s the one minute of pure enjoyment that you didn’t know you needed to see. Keeper Jess Stockton gives Melbourne zoo’s Brazilian tapir a good raking over for World Tapir Day (27 April)

Merry’s Meadows, Leicestershire Ancient disturbance created ridges and troughs, letting a wide range of plants colonise the meadow grassland

There is no better way to mark the land’s springtime rejuvenation than a sunny morning whiled away botanising in a floristically diverse meadow.

Merry’s Meadows – there are three fairly large fields – huddle together surrounded by a sea of bright yellow oilseed rape. The shallow corrugation of ridges and furrows indicate that a good proportion of the nature reserve was ploughed and cropped in mediaeval times.

Coalition frontbencher calls for Queenslanders to boycott Australia’s second-largest bank after it says it will now only lend to mines in established coalfields

All of Australia’s big four banks have ruled out funding or withdrawn from Adani’s Queensland coal project, after Westpac said it would not back opening up new coalmining regions.

Westpac, the country’s second-largest bank, released a new climate policy on Friday, saying it would limit lending for new thermal coal projects to “only existing coal producing basins”.