Ikea has come up with a plan to help some of the world's most polluted cities breathe easier. The global furniture giant will start making products out of agricultural waste in India, meaning farmers no longer have to burn it. The initiative, called "Better Air Now," will provide Indian farmers with a use for unwanted rice straw, which is often burned. Smoke from the fires is one of the major contributors to northern India's pollution crisis.

The lawsuit claims the defendants knew that "PFOA and PFOS were highly soluble and mobile in water, highly likely to contaminate water supplies and other sensitive receptors, were persistent in the environment, and would bio-accumulate in humans causing serious health effects."

Research suggests first year ‘critical window’ in which toxic air can increase weight gain

Almost 3,000,000,000 single use cups are set to be used in the UK this year – and just one in 25 of them will get recycled. New figures – buried in a report released on budget day – reveal the shocking scale of the problem despite pledges to tackle the mountain of waste heading for landfill. Campaigners have accused the government of ‘sitting on its hands’ and doing little to combat the issue despite growing public outrage.

"It could be a game-changer in the fight against climate change," the executive director of the Sierra Club said.

A study published this week in ‘Environmental Science & Technology’ sampled salt brands from across the globe and found 92 percent contained microplastics.

Plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds could be banned within a year under government plans to cut pollution, Michael Gove is to announce. Launching a consultation on the proposals on Monday, the environment secretary will cite the success of the 5p charge on single-use plastic bags, which led to an 86% drop in their use at major supermarkets.

China has some of the worst air pollution in the world. In several cities, thick layers of smog are common, resulting in thousands of deaths every year. According to a 2016 study, the top contributor of air pollution-related deaths in China is the burning of coal. The team of Chinese and American researchers behind the study said that pollution from coal caused 366,000 premature deaths in 2013.

Anna Du was walking along Castle Island’s beach in South Boston when she noticed plastic scattered on the shoreline. She reached down to pick it up, and quickly realized there was many more tiny pieces than she could handle. “When I realized how many pieces there were, it seemed impossible,” says Du, who was in sixth grade at the time.

The European Parliament has voted for a complete ban on a range of single-use plastics across the union in a bid to stop pollution of the oceans. MEPs backed a ban on plastic cutlery and plates, cotton buds, straws, drink-stirrers and balloon sticks.

Exposure to the main ingredient in smog may be linked to a type of bleeding stroke, according to new research. Studies have shown an association between clot-caused ischemic stroke, the most common type, and fine particulate matter such as air pollution from car exhaust. But few, if any, have investigated how air pollution like ground-level ozone impacts intracerebral hemorrhage, a bleeding type of stroke which accounts for about 10 percent of all strokes and happens when a weakened vessel ruptures into the surrounding brain.

There's a good chance a dose of tiny plastic particles has taken up residence in your gut, a new, small study argues. Microplastics, as they are called, were found in stool samples from a handful of volunteers located across Europe and Asia, researchers report. Every single person out of the group of 8 had microplastics in their stool, on average about 20 particles for every 3.5 ounces of stool, said study author Dr. Philipp Schwabl, a researcher with the Medical University of Vienna.

In order to reduce marine litter European Parliament has voted to ban a range of single-use plastics across the European Union. The European Union proposed a ban of single-use plastics earlier in May this year following the demand from public to reduce and fight marine litter. The proposal asked for EU wide rules that would target “10 single-use plastic products most often found on Europe’s beaches and seas, as well as lost and abandoned fishing gear. Together these constitute 70% of all marine litter items.”

Mount Everest has a mountain of a problem: human waste. And not just leftover camping meals, beer and fuel cans, but human poo, too. So, how much poopy and other garbage calls the planet's highest mountain home? A Tech Times story describes the mountain as "the world's highest garbage dump." But Alton Byers, a mountain geologist at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder...

Exclusive: Simple act of breathing is killing 7 million people a year and harming billions more, but ‘a smog of complacency pervades the planet’, says Dr Tedros Adhanom

Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s and Nestle are among 250 major brands pledging to cut all plastic waste from their operations – a move described by the UN as the most ambitious effort yet to fight plastic pollution. The commitment comes as public pressure mounts on manufacturers and retailers to reduce the avalanche of plastic packaging clogging landfills and choking the oceans.

The World Health Organization found that 1.8 billion people under 15 are at risk of respiratory infections due to contaminated air.

Impact of high levels of toxic air ‘is equivalent to having lost a year of education’

Air pollution causes a “huge” reduction in intelligence, according to new research, indicating that the damage to society of toxic air is far deeper than the well-known impacts on physical health. The research was conducted in China but is relevant across the world, with 95% of the global population breathing unsafe air. It found that high pollution levels led to significant drops in test scores in language and arithmetic, with the average impact equivalent to having lost a year of the person’s education.

Pope Francis on Saturday called for concrete action to combat the "emergency" of plastics littering seas and oceans, lamenting the lack of effective regulation to protect the world's waters. Building on his papacy's concern for the environment, Francis issued a message aimed at galvanizing Christians and others to commit to saving what he hails as the "impressive and marvelous," God-given gift of the "great waters and all they contain."

Since 2015, we've been following the story of Boyan Slat, a young inventor who set out to fight against the world's plastic pollution problem. At only 20 years old, he developed an invention aimed at tackling the world's largest patch of garbage, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This vortex of trash, located between California and Hawaii, covers 600,000 square miles of ocean and is responsible for countless animal deaths.

Humans looking back on this period of history in future will be astonished by the huge amount of plastic this generation left behind – because rubbish waste is now so prolific it will become fossilised, a scientist has said. Dr Dan Parsons, professor of sedimentology at Hull University, says that it is inevitable there will be a record of the thousands of tonnes of plastic waste we generate as microplastics are already seeping into the earth and into the food chain.

From making biofuels to eating up harmful plastics, fungi could help us build a greener planet. Fungi could not just help rid the planet of plastic by degrading it, but by making it obsolete it, too. Research in the Kew report suggests that naturally made materials using fungal mycelia are being used increasingly often instead of more harmful materials such as polystyrene and leather.

Mosquito larvae that grow up in water contaminated with plastic accumulate the litter in their bodies – and some of it remains there even after the larvae emerge as adult flies. The mosquitoes may exacerbate the problem of plastic contamination when they are eaten by animals living on land.

Southern California went 87 days without a clean air day, the longest stretch of consecutive ozone pollution violations in at least 20 years. Regulators blame the persistence in pollution on hot, stagnant weather and are studying whether climate change is driving it.

Britain is to call for a third of the world's oceans to be protected from damaging activity by 2030. The ambitious target, announced at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, would ensure the marine environment has a "buffer" against the effects of climate change, plastic pollution and human exploitation. It's a significant victory for Sky Ocean Rescue which has campaigned for tighter marine protection.

At least half of the world’s killer whale populations are doomed to extinction due to toxic and persistent pollution of the oceans, according to a major new study. Although the poisonous chemicals, PCBs, have been banned for decades, they are still leaking into the seas. They become concentrated up the food chain; as a result, killer whales, the top predators, are the most contaminated animals on the planet.

Today, Ontario's Government for the People announced the cancellation of the outdated Drive Clean program, saving money for Ontario taxpayers and reducing the regulatory burden on Ontario families while enhancing regulations for the biggest polluters on Ontario's roads. Effective April 1, 2019, drivers will no longer be required to get Drive Clean emissions tests for their passenger vehicles.

Plastic advertising balloons that blow away to sea are killing seabirds, seals and other wildlife, campaigners have warned. Despite being sold as "biodegradable", the freebies handed out at local fetes and by big restaurant brands are often blown away miles to the coast. "Dolphins, whales, turtles, seabirds and other animals have been killed by balloons," a Marine Conservation Society spokesman told Sky News. "Animals swallow the balloons which can block their gut, causing them to starve.

Three leading companies produce two–thirds of Bangladesh’s total single-use non-recyclable plastics, leading pollution and posing serious consequences to the environment. Among the national and multinational companies, PRAN Food Limited, Abdul Monem Limited, and Bombay Sweets Company Limited produce 67% of the total plastics, according to the latest report by the Environment and Social Development Organization (ESDO).

Much of the plastic trash cleaned up from Canadian shorelines by volunteers in September could be traced back to five companies: Nestlé, Tim Hortons, PepsiCo, the Coca-Cola Company and McDonald's, an audit led by Greenpeace Canada has found. Greenpeace and other environmental advocacy groups working on the international Break Free from Plastic campaign looked for branding on 10,000 litres of food wrappers, plastic bottles, plastic-lined coffee cups and other trash collected in...

Sea turtles have more than a one in five chance of dying after ingesting a single piece of plastic, a study by CSIRO researchers reveals. Scientists analysed almost 1000 washed-up turtles on Australian beaches and found a direct link between the amount of plastic consumed and the demise of the marine animal.

Air pollution can have a “huge” negative effect on cognitive intelligence – especially amongst older men – according to a study released this past August. The research is one of the first of its kind to focus on the links between air pollution and cognition in older people. It was undertaken by scientists at Peking University in Beijing, China and Yale University in the U.S. and was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. In particular...

Tourists from mainland China take photos in front of a large outdoor banner showing what Hong Kong looks like on a clean air day, in Hong Kong in 2014.

A new study shows a significant decrease in mercury levels for Atlantic bluefish -- and indication that restrictions on coal emissions are working.