Environment / Pollution

In talks about trade, something vital is omitted: the environment.

Around the world, 15 million people – including children – have little choice but to earn a living from the waste polluting their surroundings. They often work in dangerous conditions, risking their health, sometimes their lives; and are usually relegated to the bottom of the social pecking order, struggling to improve their working conditions.

Dinyar Godrej explains why the packing industry loves shunting the blame on individual consumers.

Last year, China announced a ban on imports of ‘foreign garbage’. The result? Western stockpiles of used paper and plastic have reached crisis proportions. Adam Liebman on why we need a less rosy notion of what actually happens to our recycling.

How much; disposal; food; plastic; electronic waste; the facts and figures.

The dirt on waste. Dinyar Godrej argues that the problems with our throwaway society add up to much more than the sum of individual actions.

New research suggests that low-carbon infrastructure is not only ethical, it also yields greater economic returns.

Violeta Santos Moura reports from Poland, where air pollution claims some 45,000 lives annually. The country’s reliance on coal is the main culprit but it’s an issue bound up in national pride and political manipulation.

Residents from a coastal village in the Gambia are suing a Chinese-owned fishmeal plant accused of pollution, writes Nosmot Gbadamosi.

Household Air Pollution causes over 13,000 deaths a year in Malawi – but it still can’t get on the country’s health agenda.

Fast fashion around the world.

Connor Woodman reveals the ties that bind transnational mining companies to the Indonesian occupation.

The British-Australian mine of Cerro Matoso has been linked to birth defects, pollution, poverty and paramilitary pay-offs. Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik investigates.

Polyp's latest cartoon.

The sanitation crisis is over, but the government faces further challenges, writes Habib Battah.

As UN special rapporteur on the right to a healthy environment presents his report today, Doug Weir explains why this is especially important in armed conflict.

A brief illustrated history of the climate negotiations by cartoonist Kate Evans.

As rich countries declare ‘ambition’ while racing to weaken the text, some climate justice campaigners are turning their backs on the COP21 negotiations and looking elsewhere for hope, reports Morgan Curtis.

An extraordinary gathering of frontline communities in Paris has been presenting evidence of crimes against nature. Nigerian poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey reports.

Yet another draft Paris agreement was released Wednesday, and was immediately renounced by civil society, Adam Greenberg reports.