The Guardian
Co-op to replace single-use carrier bags with compostables
Lightweight bags will be rolled out within weeks to almost 1,400 stores across Britain
The Co-op is to be the first major supermarket in the UK to replace single-use plastic carrier bags with lightweight compostable alternatives that shoppers can reuse as biodegradable bags for food waste.
The bags – a stronger version of the biodegradable bags the convenience chain has been trialling since 2014 – will be rolled out within weeks to almost 1,400 stores across England, Scotland and Wales, and then to all 2,600 shops.
Continue reading...Private plane to fly endangered orange-bellied parrots for summer sojourn
Treacherous journey from Victoria to southwest Tasmania could prove too much to handle for critically threatened species
With fewer than 30 orange-bellied parrots in the wild, conservationists are not leaving anything to chance.
The critically endangered birds, which winter in Victoria’s rapidly-shrinking coastal scrubland, would ordinarily embark on the treacherous flight across the Bass Strait back to their summer breeding grounds in southwest Tasmania in the coming weeks.
Continue reading...Invisible killer: how one girl's tragic death could change the air pollution story
In a far-reaching human rights case, Ella Kissi-Debrah could become the first person to have toxic air given as their cause of death – and finally make this silent killer visible
From a tiny office on the top floor of the old town hall in Catford, south-east London, Rosamund Kissi-Debrah is leading a campaign to push air pollution on to the political agenda as never before. It has been claimed for years that pollution caused by motor vehicles, especially diesel cars, buses and lorries, is a killer, with talk of tens of thousands of premature deaths. But the number was always abstract, the identities of the dead unknown. Now, for the first time, campaigners have the name of a young victim they say died as a direct result of air pollution: Ella Roberta Kissi-Debrah, Rosamund’s daughter, and if they can prove it they believe an invisible killer will become all too real.
Ella, who suffered from severe asthma, died in 2013 at the age of nine. She had been suffering asthma-related seizures like the one which killed her for three years. Kissi-Debrah says her daughter, who grew up and went to school close to the busy South Circular Road in Lewisham, had cough syncope – a condition usually associated with long-distance lorry drivers who’d been driving for decades. “I couldn’t work out why a nine-year-old child should have that,” she tells me.
Continue reading...Two tiger sharks killed in Whitsundays after attacks on tourists
Baited hooks had been set in Cid Harbour following the two attacks and victims remain in hospital
Queensland fisheries authorities have caught and killed two tiger sharks, but it is unclear if they are responsible for separate attacks on a woman and a girl in the Whitsundays.
Hannah Papps, 12, was holidaying from Melbourne with her father and sister when she received a life-threatening wound to her right leg on Thursday while swimming in shallow water in Cid Harbour.
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority director quits over potential conflict of interest
Margie McKenzie’s diving company was subcontracted to perform crown-of-thorns starfish removal work
A board director of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has resigned following reports of a potential conflict of interest over the allocation of publicly-funded contracts to control crown-of-thorns starfish.
Margie McKenzie told the environment minister, Melissa Price, of her plan to resign late last week over “perceived concerns of a conflict of interest”.
Continue reading...Air pollution, a wildlife manifesto and autumn colour – green news roundup
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
UN environment chief criticised by UN over frequent flying
Build walls on seafloor to stop glaciers melting, scientists say
UK pledges £2.1m to save Asian tigers and African chimpanzees
EU must end new petrol and diesel car sales by 2030 to meet climate targets – report
Microplastics can spread via flying insects, research shows
Air pollution linked to much greater risk of dementia
Two directors quit key fracking firm amid ‘Tory rebellion’ claims
Germany launches world’s first hydrogen-powered train
Air pollution particles found in mothers’ placentas
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A herd of bison, orangutan babies and a pod of hippos are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...UN environment chief criticised by UN over frequent flying
Erik Solheim’s huge travel bill is a ‘reputation risk’ and he has ‘no regard’ for rules, says draft internal audit
The globe-trotting travels of the UN’s environment chief have been sharply criticised in a draft internal audit as “contrary to the ethos of carbon emission reduction”.
Erik Solheim, executive director of UN Environment, was travelling for 529 out of the 668 days audited, spending $488,518 (£370,380), according to the report. The audit also said he had “no regard for abiding by the set regulations and rules” and claimed unjustified expenses.
Continue reading...Lidl to stop using black plastic fruit and vegetable packaging
Black plastic, which cannot be recycled, to be phased out by end of month
Lidl UK says it will remove black plastic from its entire fruit and vegetable range by the end of the month.
Black plastic packaging is not recyclable in the UK, as it cannot be detected by the sorting systems used for plastic recycling, and the supermarket chain says its move will save an estimated 50 tonnes of black plastic waste a year.
Continue reading...Sadiq Khan says he's better than Boris on cycling – but do his claims add up?
The mayor of London is proud of his work boosting cycling in the capital, but his critics say too little is being done
On a blustery September day two years into his mayoralty of London, Sadiq Khan appears atop a Santander cycle to open a stretch of kerb-protected bike lane – the 2.5km extension of cycle superhighway 6, from Farringdon to Kings Cross. It may be the first time he’s appeared officially on a bike since his 2016 election campaign but he seems genuinely passionate about cycling and walking, and has clearly done his homework – even if some of his stats don’t tell the whole story.
Flanked by his deputy mayor for transport, Heidi Alexander, and his walking and cycling commissioner, Will Norman, Khan is bullish about his cycling record. This despite ongoing criticism over delays, and a bruising exchange with Westminster city council this summer – the council he brands “anti-walking, anti-cycling” after it blocked cycle superhighway 11 and Oxford Street pedestrianisation in quick succession.
Continue reading...Picnics on the motorway: the first car-free Sundays – in pictures
For three months from November 1973, the Dutch government banned cars on Sundays to curb oil consumption during the Opec energy crisis. City residents enjoyed picnics on empty motorways and got around on foot, by bike ... and on horseback
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef inquiry: officials refuse to answer questions over $444m grant
Departmental officials repeatedly claim cabinet and budget confidentiality when asked about the grant process
Australia’s environment department head has told an inquiry it is wrong to assume that no due diligence was undertaken before a record $444m grant was offered to a private foundation for Great Barrier Reef projects.
But the chair of a Senate inquiry examining the controversial grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation says he is “convinced now that there has been no long-term work into this proposal”.
Continue reading...Gina Rinehart-backed Lakes Oil loses bid to have Victorian fracking ban overturned
The Victorian company had planned to explore for conventional gas as well as coal seam gas
A company part-owned by Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart has failed to have the Victorian government’s fracking ban overturned or to be awarded $2.7bn in damages.
Between 2002 and 2013 two subsidiaries of Lakes Oil, of which Rinehart is the second-largest shareholder, obtained four exploration permits and two retention leases under Victoria’s Petroleum Act 1998. A retention lease grants the right to any petroleum discovered during the permit period.
Continue reading...'Privatizing the coast': are wealthy Californians seizing public beaches?
As some try to seal off stretches of coastline for private use, the state wants to tackle a growing divide between rich and poor
Privates Beach is named not for its exclusivity but for its permissive stance on nude sunbathing. This small patch of paradise on the California coastline is adored by locals, and anyone is welcome to enjoy the clean and quiet spot. If, that is, they have a key costing $100 a year.
A 9ft iron gate blocks the path to a beach staircase, set among expensive hillside homes in the tony surf town of Santa Cruz, south of San Francisco. Yet by California law, all the beaches along its 840 alluring miles of coastline belong to the people, and the state is cracking down at Privates and elsewhere in a push to mitigate a growing divide between rich and poor.
Continue reading...A photographic exploration of the cryosphere
When Records Melt is an exhibition by Project Pressure premiering at Unseen Amsterdam of artists’ interpretations of the cryosphere: the part of the planet’s surface where water is frozen into solid form
Continue reading...Australia could launch legal challenge to Japan's 'scientific' whaling hunts
After a ‘win for whales’ at the IWC, government is urged to do more but refuses to send ship to monitor Japan’s actions
The environment minister, Melissa Price, has not ruled out taking legal action to challenge Japan’s so-called “scientific” whaling hunts.
An international law expert says prospects for a legal case against Japan’s whaling program, which is carried out under an International Whaling Commission clause that allows for scientific whaling, have strengthened after the recent IWC meeting in Brazil, and would get even stronger if Japan followed through on its threat to leave the commission.
Continue reading...Whitsundays shark attacks: drum lines to be set as two tourists remain critical
Fisheries Queensland to set baited lines in Cid Harbour after separate attacks on same day
Drum lines will be set after two tourists were critically injured in separate shark attacks at a harbour in the Whitsunday Islands in north Queensland.
A 12-year-old New Zealand girl holidaying with her father and sister received a life-threatening wound to her leg on Thursday afternoon at Cid Harbour.
Continue reading...Ciwem environmental photographer of the year 2018 winners – in pictures
The Iranian photographer Saeed Mohammadzadeh has been named Ciwem’s environmental photographer of the year. End Floating, his haunting image of a beached boat on the solidified salty remains of Urmia Lake, illustrates how climate change, water mismanagement and drought have decimated the landscape
Continue reading...About 1,000 deer to be culled at controversial Dutch rewilding park
More than 3,000 deer, ponies and cattle died last winter at the Oostvaardersplassen reserve
A Dutch provincial council has authorised the mass cull of about 1,000 deer on a controversial nature reserve east of Amsterdam where more than 3,000 red deer, ponies and cattle died last winter, almost all of them shot by park rangers because they were starving.
A report by a special committee of Flevoland council earlier this year demanded an immediate end to the rewilding principles on which the unique 15,000-acre Oostvaardersplassen reserve was run, which allowed “natural processes” to determine the herbivore population.
Continue reading...Air pollution sickens us in a car-addicted society | Letters
Your report (School run is the ‘biggest polluter’ of air children breathe, 18 September) highlights the continuing failure of government to recognise the dangers of air pollution, specifically from diesel engines, and to take necessary action to limit the number of premature deaths. But the school run is only part of the problem facing infants, children and the wider population.
Many schools are on what are now extremely busy roads; only a minority have had an air pollution survey; and because of austerity measures they seldom have the resources to take remedial action by acquiring air purifiers. School buses keep their diesel engines ticking over for half an hour or longer and legal restrictions are simply ignored by bus companies and the police. Ice-cream vans in public parks and holiday resorts are diesel-powered, but they keep their engines running all day, even when located near children’s playgrounds.
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