The good news is, our collective efforts to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost have made San Francisco the most successful big city in America at reducing what goes to landfill. The bad news is, plastics have become a huge issue for all of us. “60 Minutes” recently aired a powerful segment on plastic waste and its impact on the environment, along with the (as yet unsuccessful) efforts to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A portion of that feature was filmed at Recycle Central at Pier 96 in San Francisco, which is Recology’s largest and most technologically advanced recycling facility.

Mexican lager brand Corona is launching a pilot program to replace it’s plastic 6-pack ring packaging with a biodegradable alternative. The new packaging is 100% plastic-free and made from plant-based biodegradable fibres, with a mix of by-product waste and compostable materials.

World’s first PET aerogels cut plastic waste, and are suitable for heat and sound insulation, oil spill cleaning, carbon dioxide absorption, as well as fire safety applications. Researchers from the the National University of Singapore (NUS) have made a significant contribution towards resolving the global issue of plastic waste, by creating a way to convert plastic bottle waste into aerogels for many useful applications.

This is how the Italian city of Bologna is getting people to leave their cars behind.

From cod to clingfilm, the advice we’re given can often be confusing. If you’re serious about eating green, here are some straightforward solutions

In a year when climate change is moving from abstract theory to grimly tangible reality, a faint dot of hope may be on the horizon. China, the world’s largest source of planet-warming carbon emissions, may have hit the peak it promised in the Paris climate accord well before its 2030 timetable. That’s the conclusion reached by scientists who looked at the country’s estimated carbon output between 2007 and 2016, as the country’s rapid industrialization slowed and its consumption of coal declined. The research is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

A major new study involving researchers from the University of York has measured a global shift towards more sustainable agricultural systems that provide environmental improvements at the same time as increases in food production. The study shows that the sustainable intensification of agriculture, a term that was once considered paradoxical, delivers considerable benefits to both farmers and the environment. The study, published in the leading journal Nature Sustainability, involved researchers from 17 universities and research institutes in the UK, USA, Sweden, Ethiopia and New Zealand.

There is high public support for using the tax system to reduce waste from single-use plastics, the Treasury says. A consultation on how taxes could tackle the rising problem and promote recycling attracted 162,000 responses. Treasury Minister Robert Jenrick said the government was looking at "smart, intelligent incentives" to get plastic producers to take responsibility.

The fight against single-use plastic has been gathering steam over the past months, but the Caribbean nation of Dominica has taken the crusade to another level. The island nation has announced its aim to completely ban common plastics and single-use Styrofoam cups and food containers -- effective January 2019. Announcing this intention in June's budget address, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said his government wanted to help preserve Dominica's famously beautiful natural landscape.

The food court at Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto used to generate 120 bags of garbage a day. Now it produces just three — despite the fact that it serves noodles, fried chicken, burgers and other fast foods to 24,000 customers a day. "It actually just goes to show the type of waste that is here in the food collection or after you finish your meal — how much of that is actual garbage," said Claire Santamaria, the mall's general manager.

Starbucks plans to eliminate plastic straws globally by 2020. The coffee-shop giant announced Monday that it will use recyclable strawless lids and an alternative-material straw option in its more than 28,000 stores around the world. The move will eliminate more than one billion plastic straws per year from Starbucks stores, the company said.

SEATTLE - Plastic straws, utensils and cocktail picks will be banned at all Seattle businesses that sell food or drinks under a new law that takes effect July 1. Seattle is believed to be the first major U.S. city to enact such a ban.

McDonald's will replace plastic straws with paper ones in all its UK and Ireland restaurants, starting from September. It is the latest company to opt out of some single-use plastic products which can take hundreds of years to decompose if not recycled. The restaurant chain uses 1.8 million straws a day in the UK.

Halogen lights will disappear from Australia within two years, as the industry and federal government pivot towards more efficient and environmentally-friendly LED lighting. A ban on halogen bulbs, which use four times the energy of LED globes, was announced last month at a meeting of state and federal environment ministers. The ban is to come into effect from September 2020 but the bulbs could start disappearing from retail stores in as little as 12 months, according to the industry’s peak body, Lighting Council Australia.

New research from North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado Boulder finds that steep declines in the use of coal for power generation over the past decade were caused largely by less expensive natural gas and the availability of wind energy – not by environmental regulations. “From 2008 to 2013, coal dropped from about 50 percent of U.S. power generation to around 30 percent,” says Harrison Fell, an associate professor of resource economics at NC State and co-lead author of a paper on the work.

Norway’s majestic fjords have become popular tourist attractions over the years. For example, more than 300.000 cruise passenger visited Geiranger last year and as a result of it, the local air pollution has become a periodical health hazard. Now the Norwegian Parliament has acted to halt emissions from cruise ships and ferries in the Norwegian world heritage fjords – making them zero-emission zones by 2026 where only electric ships will be able to go.

In today's world, business is both driven and disrupted by software. From startups to government organizations to publicly traded companies, software is developed at a record-setting pace to run almost everything. This continuous evolution of technology has drastically changed how enterprises operate today. As the race heats up among companies looking to be first-to-market with the next best product or service, considerations about the implications these systems and gadgets may have on society often are overlooked.

Portugal has produced so much renewable electricity that it has outstripped the entire country’s consumption for the month of March. The national grid operator, REN, has announced that renewables generated 4,812 gigawatt hours (GWh) over the month while demand from mainland Portugal reached 4,647 GWh, meaning renewables accounted for 103.6 percent of electricity consumption.

Burh Becc at Beacon Springs, outside Ann Arbor, is just the second home in the world to meet the Living Building Challenge.

The turbines withstood some serious gusts.