Between 24 and 29 April, 57 countries participated in a historic conference on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, hosted in Santa Marta (Colombia), Participants discussed how to speed up the phaseout of fossil fuels, focusing on coordinated action rather than passive debate. This stands in opposition to the yearly UN climate conferences (COPs), which have discussed the transition but have not yet produced an action plan. While conferences and reports organised by the UN a

You might have heard about Scotland’s ‘black bag’ waste ban. The ban is set to cover all biodegradable municipal waste (BMW), in both the domestic and commercial sectors. BMW encompasses the significant portion of municipal waste that breaks down naturally, e.g. food waste, garden waste, paper, cardboard, and natural fibres. But you may question: isn’t waste breaking down naturally a good thing? After all, isn't biodegradable waste preferable to plastics and metals that persi

Danone is a French food and drink giant and a major plastic polluter. In September 2022, a coalition of anti-plastic NGOs, including ClientEarth, Surfrider Foundation Europe, and Zero Waste France, issued a legal warning to Danone, in an effort to get the mega corporation to publish statistics about its global plastic pollution. However, this warning was ignored. In January of 2023, the coalition filed a lawsuit against Danone over its failure to comply with French due dilige

Ocean plastic is often misunderstood - and misrepresented. Media images of massive garbage patches floating in the Pacific suggest the ocean is blanketed in rubbish. The reality is more complicated - and arguably more concerning. Of the 460 million tonnes of plastic produced annually around the globe (OECD 2022), 353 million tonnes go to waste and only about 9% is recycled in any meaningful way. Approximately 82 millions tonnes of this waste (of the 9%) is mismanaged - eith

When Britain's recycling targets are met on paper, it is worth asking: where does the plastic actually go? The answer is increasingly overseas. Chemical recycling, as we explored in the previous piece in this series, has failed to provide the domestic processing solution the industry promised. That failure has a direct consequence: plastic that cannot be recycled at home gets shipped abroad instead. In 2024 alone, the UK exported 598 million kilos of plastic waste, an increas

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill will reach the report stage in the House of Lords on 24th February. Every day, an estimated 3 million cigarette filters are littered in the UK. This means that since the first reading of the Bill in parliament on the 20th March 2024, approximately 1.8 billion cigarette filters have been dropped onto UK streets and into waterways. With this bill the UK government could reduce plastic pollution and improve public health by answering the call from re

The Coca-Cola Company is a multinational beverage corporation. In 2022, Coca-Cola produced 134 billion single-use plastic bottles and were responsible for around one in five of the world’s PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles. It is the top plastic producing company in the world, with a plastic footprint of 3.45 million tonnes, estimated to increase to 4.13 tons by 2030. Since 2018, Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) member organizations and supporters have contribut

For a long time, the fossil fuel industry has been pushing the narrative that it is the fault of consumers that there is so much plastic pollution. They have said that the public is not recycling enough. They blame developing countries for the pollution that ends up in the sea. With the fall in revenue from fossil energy, the industry ramped up plastic production to mitigate its losses and focused on single use products to maximise turnover. They turned a blind eye to wha

In April 2024, Coca-Cola, the largest beverage manufacturer in the world, launched an eye-catching campaign titled ‘ Recycle Me ’ in...

Environmental and economic arguments for reuse Too often conflated with recycling, reuse involves multiple circulations of reusable...

Increasingly microplastics are finding their way into our wastewater, and whilst the fact that this may lead to plastics in our oceans is...

Poisoning. Dismemberment. Disease. It sounds like a horror film in the making. But this is the reality faced by many beneath the ocean’s sur

Described as the most important green deal since the Paris Accords, 180 nations have taken key steps towards agreeing a legally binding...

Many objects describe themselves as being recyclable or compostable. For example, take-away coffee cups, which at first sight seem to...

Despite its 'pristine' public image, Switzerland’s environmental record turns out to have more holes than one of its famous cheeses....

Think Switzerland and many will recall the Von Trapps gambolling across alpine hills to freedom and Broadway history. But movie buffs...

Since its conception in 1907 by Belgian Chemist Leo Baekeland, plastic has played a significant role in shaping how modern society is...

The energy crisis has caused bills to rise globally and has forced many into poverty. The issue was worsened by Russia’s invasion of...

'Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic. With today’s resolution we are officially on track for a cure.' Espen Barth Eide, Minister...

GOOD NEWS: The government announced its own New Year’s Resolution in the first week of January: the banning of single-use plastic cutlery...