Environment news

• Clothes piling up in your closet? A landmark California bill would mandate brands recycle them

  24-09-2024 16:00
  California could become the first state to tackle the fast fashion waste overwhelming consumers and landfillsLet’s say you bought a new pair of jeans and wore them for a few years before deciding it was time to part ways. You could throw them away, or, if you wanted a more environmentally friendly option, you might try to sell or swap them or donate them to a local thrift store.Either way, the onus is on you to pass those jeans on, and hope for the best. But a new California bill that tack
  
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• Residents near Lancashire chemicals plant told to wash homegrown produce

  24-09-2024 11:00
  
  Exclusive: council issues advisory as investigation begins and documents reveal estimates of PFOA emissionsPeople living near a chemicals plant in Lancashire have been told to wash and peel vegetables from their gardens before eating them, while an investigation into potential contamination of soil in the area with a banned toxic chemical gets under way.The chemical PFOA, one of the PFAS family of about 15,000 chemicals, does not break down in the environment and last year was categorised as a h
  
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• ‘The otter came so close I could smell her fishy breath’: scribbles and sketches from Scotland’s wild isles

  24-09-2024 08:00
  In an extract from her new book, Still Waters & Wild Waves, the artist and illustrator Angela Harding documents the wildlife and landscapes of the Scottish islands Fair Isle and ShetlandWords and images: Angela Harding Today the UK woke up to a day of excitement. A day of street parties, a national holiday, and celebrations for a new king. It was also day three of gale-force winds on Fair Isle, and it was the day my mother died. A brief phone call from her care home, then the aloneness. The
  
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• Norway is shying away from tourism – here’s what other countries could learn | Shazia Majid

  24-09-2024 08:00
  
  Norwegians are putting their natural environment (and weekend activities) ahead of tourism’s economic benefits In Norway, nature is something of a national obsession. Norwegian children are taught that “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”, and Norwegian babies are packed into thermals and overalls and taken on day trips to the woods. Cross-country skiing, hunting for wild mushrooms or cloudberries, or huffing and puffing up a mountain are standard weekend
  
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• Country diary: Glowworms, nature’s gooey gourmands, get to work | Amy-Jane Beer

  24-09-2024 06:30
  
  Ripon, North Yorkshire: The sun-dappled verges edged with willowherbs and brambles are good places for snails and this new batch of predators“Mate, the state of you.” Peter Cooper, an ecologist and species reintroduction specialist, is performing a delicate operation, using the tip of a fine paintbrush to extract a succession of tiny creatures from the shell whorls of a deceased and deliquescing snail on which they are feasting. He transfers them to a scrap of cellulose foam on which
  
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• Low-lying Pacific islands pin hopes on UN meeting as sea rise threatens survival

  24-09-2024 02:56
  UN general assembly to hold special session this week as experts say rises already locked in by climate change mean disappearance of many atollsThe Pacific country of Kiribati might be surrounded by water, but on land its population is running dry. The ocean around them is steadily encroaching, contaminating underground wells and leeching salt into the soil.“Our waters have been infected,” climate activist and law student Christine Tekanene says. “Those who are affected, they n
  
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• Bird photographer of the year 2024 winners – in pictures

  24-09-2024 02:10
  
  The winning images in this year’s Bird Photographer of the Year competition have been selected from 23,000 entries from around the world. The overall winner Patricia Homonylo’s image showed birds killed by colliding with windows. Continue reading...
  
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