
New Zealand cuts funding for Cook Islands in response to China deals
Act now to keep your subscription
We've tried to contact you several times as we haven't been able to take payment. You must update your payment details via My Account or by clicking update payment details to keep your subscription.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Guardian
30 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump's plan for Iran divides Republicans
Archive: ABC News, AP, BBC News, CBS Mornings, CNN, KTLA 5, MSNBC, NBC News, PBS Newshour, Tucker Carlson, The War Room


BBC News
40 minutes ago
- BBC News
Plastic bags: Have bans and fees curbed shoreline litter?
Banning or charging for plastic bags is helping stop them ending up on US shorelines, a study of the country's litter from thousands of cleanups showed that areas which tried to reduce bag use saw them fall by at least 25% as a percentage of total litter collected, compared to areas that didn't or charging for bags worked better at state rather than town level, and had a bigger impact in places that had a bigger litter problem to begin the good news, the researchers cautioned that, overall, more plastic bags are being found across the US – they're just increasing less in those places trying to tackle the issue. Plastic bag laws in the US vary considerably by state, county and town, which made it a useful place for researchers to test the effectiveness of bag range from bans and partial bans (where only thinner bags are banned), to charges on bags and pre-emption laws, where states prevent counties and towns from regulating plastic bags researchers used data from shoreline cleanups that recorded bags as a percentage of all items collected, and looked at how this differed in areas with a policy compared to those average, bags made up 4.5% of items collected in cleanups, and were the fifth most common item found after cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic bottle caps and plastic drinks models were used to analyse the data, which estimated that the relative decrease in bags in areas with a policy was between 25% and 47%. Comparing 182 policies and 45,067 cleanups from 2016 to 2023, the study's authors said it was the largest analysis of how effective such policies are in curbing shoreline litter. Plastic bags 'only part of the problem' The findings highlight the importance of policy in reducing plastic pollution, lead study author Anna Papp key policy opportunity would be the first global plastics treaty that 175 countries will continue negotiating in August, after talks collapsed in December."Stronger results in areas with a higher baseline of plastic bag litter means these policies may be especially effective in these areas," she said."It's also very important to keep in mind with the treaty, plastic bag policy addresses just one part of the problem. "More comprehensive solutions are needed to address it entirely, with a focus on the production side, consumption, and waste," she research cautions that despite the evidence policies are working to reduce the relative percentage of plastic bags on shorelines, the overall percentage of bags is still increasing in places with and without is because plastic pollution continues to grow overall, so policies can only make so much of a dent in the the UK, where charges on single-use plastic bags started to be adopted in 2011, a survey found there had been an 80% fall in the number of bags washed up on beaches over a decade. Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC's Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.


Times
41 minutes ago
- Times
Backed into a corner, Ayatollah Khamenei faces impossible choice
Act now to keep your subscription We've tried to contact you several times as we haven't been able to take payment. You must update your payment details via My Account or by clicking update payment details to keep your subscription.