The Guardian

Eindhoven in the Netherlands is set to become the first district in the world to have habitable homes, made with a 3D printer. Houses have been made with 3D printers before but none has been fit for people to live in. The Dutch team behind the innovation hope the system will revolutionise the construction industry with far more energy-efficient, eco-friendly homes  

What is and isn’t being phased out?And how effective will the new policy be?

By the end of June, most of Australia’s major supermarkets will have stopped handing out single-use plastic bags.

Woolworths, Coles and the Queensland government are all phasing out lightweight shopping bags, potentially preventing billions of bags from finding their way into landfill or oceans.

State and federal governments to confirm that 14 lake sites have been earmarked

Pumped hydro projects generating energy at twice the scale of the much-vaunted Snowy 2.0 scheme will be identified across Tasmania on Wednesday, with modelling suggesting the proposal could deliver thousands of jobs between now and 2028.

The Turnbull and Hodgman governments will confirm that 14 pumped hydro sites have been earmarked across the state with a combined potential generation capacity of up to 4,800 megawatts.

The plan to expand Heathrow still faces hurdles, including environmental impacts and whether the sums add up

Heathrow has long argued it is in effect full, with the number of flights capped on its two runways. Its contention is that only a major hub airport, with connecting flights adding passengers from around Britain, can sustain the long-haul route network that an island nation requires, particularly in regards to trade with emerging markets and the post-Brexit environment. It is a point of view shared by many business leaders and the Department for Transport. Most international airlines want to fly to Heathrow rather than other London airports, and most cargo goes the same way.

Country will also introduce a campaign against marine litter and a pledge to make 100 national monuments litter-free

India will eliminate all single-use plastic in the country by 2022, prime minister Narendra Modi has announced.

The pledge is the most ambitious yet of the global actions to combat plastic pollution that are taking place in 60 nations around the world. Modi’s move aims to drastically stem the flow of plastic from the 1.3 billion people living in the fastest growing economy in the world.

The government has approved a controversial plan to expand the London hub after years of delays and opposition from campaigners.

The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, said the announcement was a 'historic moment' that showed the government had a clear vision to build 'a Britain fit for the future'.

Critics say the creation of an additional runway will cause further harm to the environment and may end up costing the taxpayer billions

Tory splits mean government may have to rely on Labour and SNP to win parliamentary vote

The government has finally given the green light to the controversial plan to build a third runway at Heathrow airport following years of delays and opposition from campaigners.

The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, said the announcement represented a “historic moment” that showed the government had a clear vision to build “a Britain fit for the future”. Critics claim it will damage the environment and could end up costing the taxpayer billions.

Government has given the green light, but there are still many more potential obstacles

The cabinet has endorsed as official policy a revised national policy statement on aviation, whose key point is to enable Heathrow expansion, specifically a third runway to the north-west of the existing airport. A wider vote will now take place within 21 sitting days in parliament, or by 10 July.

Early this year, the South African government announced that Day Zero was looming – a moment, after three years of unprecedented drought, when dam levels would be so low that taps would be turned off and people would have to fetch water at communal collection points.

After taking remedial measures, Capetonians managed to push back the date of Day Zero until next year. We visited the city to find out how the threat of an apocalyptic disaster has changed lives

To celebrate World Environment day, Reuters photographers met people from Athens to Singapore trying to play their part as the war on plastics becomes a key political topic

Eight million tonnes of plastic - bottles, packaging and other waste - are dumped into the ocean every year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain, the United Nations Environment Program said in December.

While governments and retailers started clamping down on plastic bags through bans and small fees more than a decade ago, the focus has now increasingly turned to eradicating throwaway items such as straws and takeaway food and drink packaging.

Ex-minister says opponents of third runway should be allowed to have their say

The government must allow a free vote on Heathrow expansion plans to allow ministers and MPs to represent their constituents, the former education secretary Justine Greening has said.

Greening, a fierce critic of the plans, said ministers such as Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, should be allowed to register their long-held opposition to a third runway without breaking collective cabinet responsibility.

Call for fisheries changes after study says excessive fishing mostly to blame

The number of large fish species in Australian waters has declined by 30% in the past decade, mostly due to excessive fishing, a new study says.

Marine ecology experts are calling for changes to fisheries management after publication of the study by scientists from the University of Tasmania and the University of Technology (UTS), Sydney.

Reef monitoring program shows northern section has lost half of its coral cover

A steep decline in coral cover right across the Great Barrier Reef is a phenomenon that “has not been observed in the historical record”, a new report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science says.

The institute, Australia’s government-backed marine research agency, periodically releases results of a long-term reef monitoring program. Each reef along the Queensland coast is visited by researchers every two years to assess its condition and coral cover.

The latest results, released on Tuesday, detail how major bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 have impacted on different sections of the reef. AIMS said it had no previous record of bleaching events occurring in successive years.

“Over the 30-plus years of monitoring by AIMS, Great Barrier Reef reefs have shown their ability to recover after disturbances, but such ‘resilience’ clearly has limits,” the report says.

Sadiq Khan should take heed of the evidence and push on with the changes needed to keep cyclists safe on London’s roads

The decay of London’s cycling programme is starting to cost lives. In the last three and a half weeks, three cyclists have been killed at locations where schemes to make the road safe, or provide a safe alternative route, have been watered down or stopped under the mayoralty of Sadiq Khan.

On 11 May, Oliver Speke died after a collision two days earlier with a lorry at Romney Road, Greenwich. On 18 May, Edgaras Cepura was killed by a lorry on the same road, a mile or so to the east. There was supposed to have been a new cycle superhighway avoiding Romney Road by now, and a safe, segregated junction at the roundabout where Cepura was killed. Both schemes were postponed indefinitely after Khan came to office.

We urgently need consumers, business and governments to cut consumption of single-use, throwaway plastics, writes the UN Environment chief

Plastic pollution has grabbed the world’s attention, and with good cause.

More than 100 years after its invention, we’re addicted. To pass a day without encountering some form of plastic is nearly impossible. We’ve always been eager to embrace the promise of a product that could make life cheaper, faster, easier. Now, after a century of unchecked production and consumption, convenience has turned to crisis.

Ben Lecomte hopes to make it from Japan to San Francisco in 180 days while raising awareness of plastic pollution

A French anti-plastic campaigner has begun a six-month journey to swim through the giant floating rubbish mass known as the Great Pacific garbage patch.

Ben Lecomte, who has previously swum across the Atlantic Ocean in 1998, left the shores of Choshi in Japan on Tuesday morning, heading east.

$1bn project in Queensland’s Bowen basin to consist of almost 200 turbines

The Queensland government has approved the country’s largest windfarm, a $1bn project to build almost 200 turbines in the shadow of the Bowen basin’s coalmines.

The 800-megawatt Clarke Creek project, in cattle country north-west of Rockhampton, received planning approval on Tuesday morning. The company behind the project, Lacour Energy, says it will create about 350 jobs during three years of construction and has the capacity to provide 3% of the generation required to power the entire state. It also includes a solar component.

Transport secretary will set out proposals amid growing rift over expansion scheme

Chris Grayling is to confirm the government’s final plans for a third runway at Heathrow as the Tories prepare to impose a three-line whip in favour and Labour consider whether to remove its backing for the project.

The transport secretary will set out his proposals for the expansion to senior colleagues on the cabinet’s economic subcommittee on Tuesday morning, before the decision goes to the full cabinet for approval.

Ministers reach initial agreement with Japanese firm Hitachi over new Wylfa plant

The UK will take a £5bn-plus stake in a new nuclear power station in Wales in a striking reversal of decades-long government policy ruling out direct investment in nuclear projects.

Ministers said they had reached an initial agreement with the Japanese conglomerate Hitachi to back the Wylfa plant but emphasised that no final decision had yet been made and negotiations were just beginning.

The wilderness of Patagonia – shared by Argentina and Chile – has frequently been threatened by logging and oil industries. But in January, Chile signed a historic act of conservation, creating five protected national parks covering 4m hectares

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