The Guardian

In the 1990s almost all rubbish in the UK went to landfill. Today nearly half of household waste is recycled, thanks to EU legislation

We recycle and compost far more in Britain today than at the turn of the millennium.

Recycling targets come from Europe, and are the result of decades of directives from Brussels to reduce the environmental harm from our rubbish.

Wenlock Edge There is something about the wildness of the dog rose, the way it stands outside cultivation with a beauty that inspires so much imitation

Days of rain and wild roses, a very British June. After the breathless spell of hot weather and sunshine, the showers were inevitable. Although some have been gently summery – good growing weather, as gardeners say – many have been epic downpours, looming like fantastical cities of cloud, bursting into tempests, thunder and lightning, cats and dogs, stair-rods, flash floods.

Sometimes the whole Wagnerian spectacle comes and goes in minutes, fascinatingly local when a mile or two down the road remains bone dry. The weather feels personal, purging, and inside the storms is another, existential world. Or that’s how it felt, broken down on the motorway. Mercifully, we were in a service station car park, and once the vehicle was fixed enough to get us home, we churned through the carwash of motorway spray back to Wenlock.

University of Sydney study, conducted after two shark-related deaths, reveals overwhelming preference for non-lethal responses to attacks

Perth residents overwhelmingly prefer non-lethal responses to shark attacks, a new survey shows. Seventy-five per cent of those polled said they wanted money be spent on education and research rather than catching the shark, according to a survey published by the University of Sydney on Wednesday.

The survey was conducted between June 8 and 15, two days after university lecturer Doreen Collyer was fatally mauled by a great white shark while diving 1km off the Mindarie marina, in Perth’s northern suburbs, and five days after surfer Ben Gerring died in hospital from wounds also sustained in a great white attack.

Leadership forum hears of ‘huge gap’ between experts’ advice on phasing carbon out of the economy and public willingness to go along with that advice

A group of business and academic leaders have bemoaned the “huge gap” between what experts say ought to be done to decarbonise Australia’s economy and the public’s willingness to accept such a policy.

They want Australia’s leaders to restart a conversation after the federal election about the need to transition the economy towards renewable and cleaner energy.

Exclusive: Solar Citizens says since the 2012-13 financial year, rooftop solar owners have saved about $1bn on their household bills each year

Australian households and small businesses have invested more than $1bn a year in rooftop solar over the past five years, spending a total of almost $8bn since 2007, new calculations show.

In its latest State of Solar report, Solar Citizens – which campaigns for, and represents the interests of, solar owners – has for the first time estimated Australian’s out-of-pocket investment in rooftop solar, how much money it has saved consumers, and how much carbon it has abated.

Galaxy polling finds only 17% of voters think the Coalition has a credible climate plan and only 20% think Labor does

Support for strong action on climate change is at its highest level since 2008, with much sought after uncommitted voters showing the strongest support, according to Galaxy polling commissioned by the Climate Institute.

Despite that, voters were dissatisfied with both Labor and Coalition policies, with only 17% saying the Coalition had a credible climate plan and only 20% saying Labor did.

‘Historic’ agreement between the state’s largest utility company and environmental groups follows safety debates over proximity to seismic faults

California’s last nuclear power plant will close by 2025 under an accord announced Tuesday, ending three decades of safety debates that helped fuel the national anti-nuclear power movement.

The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co (PG&E), and environmental groups reached an agreement to replace production at Diablo Canyon nuclear plant with solar power and other energy sources that do not produce climate-changing greenhouse gases.

Justin Schmidt sampled the stinging power of ants, bees and wasps. His reviews – from ‘blinding, fierce’ to ‘hot and smoky’ – have now been published in their entirety

Ever wondered what it’s like to be stung by an artistic wasp? (This being an actual insect species of the order Hymenoptera, as opposed to a Turner-nominated waspish type with a vendetta.) “Pure, then messy, then corrosive,” according to entomologist Justin Schmidt, otherwise known as the King of Sting. “Love and marriage followed by divorce.” Or what about something with a little more bite? Like the sting of the fierce black polybia wasp, which apparently feels like “a ritual gone wrong, Satanic. The gas lamp in the old church explodes in your face when you light it.”

Now that summer is sort of here, and wasps are blithely buzzing around the nation’s Coke cans (or San Pellegrino, if you want to be posh about your pop), check out the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, the exquisite life’s work (and pain) of a biologist at Southwest Biological Institute and the University of Arizona who appears to be a cross between Steve Irwin and Jilly Goolden. As in he likes to stick his hand into a hornet’s nest and then sample the venom as though as it were a glass of classic vintage barolo.

London mayor has told TfL to develop system of alerts and signs to increase awareness of air quality blackspots, BusinessGreen reports

Roadside signposts and online alerts could be used to inform Londoners of air pollution hotspots and periods of poor air quality, under proposals announced today by the capital’s new Mayor Sadiq Kahn.

Londoners should be much better informed when air pollution reaches dangerous levels in the UK capital, Kahn said, announcing he has directed Transport for London (TfL) to “urgently” develop a package of public alerts and signs aimed at increasing awareness of poor air quality in the city.

Total greenhouse gas emissions fell by 24% between 1990 and 2014 but road transport emissions rose by 17%, European Environment Agency data shows

Road transport has bucked a downward trend in European greenhouse gas emissions, growing by 17% between 1990 and 2014, at the same time that emissions from other sectors fell by almost a quarter.

Cars, vans and lorries reported the biggest absolute increase of any sector in CO2 emissions over the last 25 years, growing by 124 megatonnes (Mt), European Environment Agency (EEA) data published on Tuesday shows.

Environment and energy minister of small island state, one of the countries most at risk of global warming impacts, says ‘no time to waste’ on Paris deal

Rich countries must ratify the climate change agreement reached in Paris last December, one of the world’s most at-risk nations has warned.

Thoriq Ibrahim, environment and energy minister of the Maldives, told the Guardian that there was “no time to waste”, in ratifying the agreement that was reached more than six months ago, and that it should be a matter of urgency for industrialised countries.

Residents in the Ukip stronghold of Clacton-on-Sea are rightly proud of their clean beaches, fresh air and wildlife. Would they still vote leave if they knew the things they love about their town are thanks to EU membership?

Audrey James and and Mary Chivers, skirts hitched and shoes off, are paddling with their grandchildren by the pier at Clacton-on-Sea. A huge offshore windfarm spins in the distance and all around them are clean beaches, clear water and protected nature reserves.

But Groyne 41, the name of the beach on the “Essex sunshine coast” where they are picnicking, is the exception, having failed to meet tough new EU water quality tests last year possibly because of the many seagulls living below the pier.

Off-grid communities such as those in sub-Saharan Africa can pay thousands of times as much as the rest of us for their energy. Designer Jim Reeves has developed a simple, low-cost gear-train and generator that uses a descending weight to power a perpetual light source. Children can do their homework and study, families and friends can eat together and interact after dark adding new dimensions and possibilities to their lives

Aigas, Highlands The pine marten undulated through the trees in such soft eel-like loops that one could imagine it was an animal lacking in bone

For all their recent spread – they now skirt the edges of several Scottish cities and pop up occasionally even in England as far south as Shropshire – pine martens are still rare and hard to see. Aigas field study centre, with its dedicated hides and long-established feeding programme, must be one of the best places in the country to see them.

The closest I’d come in the previous 40 years were glimpses of a close relative, the beech marten, dead at the sides of Greek roads. So when one came bounding through the shadow towards us, it was a wonderful moment.

Voracious predator with sting that has been known to kill humans is spotted in waters off Turkey and Cyprus

The lionfish – a tropical creature with poisonous barbs and a painful sting that can kill humans in rare cases – may be spreading through the Mediterranean, a conservation group has warned.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (UICN) said the fish had been spotted in waters around Turkey and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean.

New studies show that tiny synthetic fibers are entering the digestive tracts of aquatic animals and potentially poisoning our food chain

The first time professor Sherri Mason cut open a Great Lakes fish, she was alarmed at what she found. Synthetic fibers were everywhere. Under a microscope, they seemed to be “weaving themselves into the gastrointestinal tract”. Though she had been studying aquatic pollution around the Great Lakes for several years, Mason, who works for the State University of New York Fredonia, had never seen anything like it.

New studies indicate that the fibers in our clothes could be poisoning our waterways and food chain on a massive scale. Microfibers – tiny threads shed from fabric – have been found in abundance on shorelines where waste water is released.

US weather agency says bleaching is now the most widespread on record and is likely to continue for unprecedented third year

The coral bleaching event sweeping the globe and destroying vast tracts of valuable coral reef is now officially the most widespread in recorded history, and is likely to continue for an unprecedented third year, according to the US weather agency.

For the coming four months, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration says its forecasts show warm ocean temperatures are expected to cause bleaching in the northern hemisphere, including around Hawaii, Micronesia, the Florida Keys and Puerto Rico.

Survey shows a majority of Chinese tourists and about a third of US and UK visitors will travel to somewhere other than Australia

If the bleaching continues on the Great Barrier Reef, tourists say they will pack their bags and go elsewhere, taking with them an estimated $1bn a year and costing 10,000 jobs in regional Queensland, according to a new poll.

The majority of Chinese tourists, and about a third of UK and US tourists, said if severe bleaching continues, and “some of the reef dies completely,” they would be more likely to visit somewhere other than Australia, according to the online polling of more than 4,000 people commissioned by the Australia Institute

Experts in Malawi will move 500 elephants 185 miles across the country to a sanctuary that will act as a ‘reservoir’

Wildlife experts in Malawi will next month start moving up to 500 elephants to a sanctuary that they hope could eventually serve as a reservoir to restore some elephant populations in other parts of Africa where the threatened species has been heavily poached.

The massive relocation, slated for completion next year, will involve darting the elephants from a helicopter, hoisting the slumbering animals by crane and loading them in crates on to trucks for a ride of about 185 miles (300km) to Malawi’s Nkhotakota wildlife reserve.

Today is a once in a lifetime event: the longest day of the year, first day of summer and a full ‘strawberry’ moon – which means it’s time to go outside

• Strawberry moon solstice: last seen during 1967’s summer of love

As if today being Monday wasn’t bad enough, it’s also the longest day of the year. Now, if you’ve spent the last nine months shuttling between your office and your apartment glimpsing only a smidgeon of sunshine in between, all this extra daytime can come as a shock. Suddenly it’s not quite so acceptable to spend your free time in a dark room watching Netflix ignoring everyone except the delivery person. You have to go outside and do outside stuff. You have to, you know, have fun in the sun.

So, how should you use today’s extra daylight? If you’re a Druid, Pagan, Wiccan or Swede you’ve probably got your plans sorted and have a nice maypole or prehistoric monument to convene around. If you don’t have any rituals planned, however, here are a few ways you can use the longest day of the year to its full advantage.