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Villagers once burned the toxic waste as fuel, but a pioneering couple’s radical education model uses it much more creativelyEvery morning, students in Assam’s Pamohi village go to school clutching a bag of plastic waste, in exchange for which they will get their day’s lessons.Akshar School, founded by Mazin Mukhtar, 32, and his wife Parmita Sarma, 30, has turned its pupils into ecowarriors by...

Activists welcome move but say government is still dragging its feet over crackdown on waste in lakes and waterwaysThe Malawian government this week ordered the closure of factories belonging to two major plastic producers for flouting the country’s plastics ban.The companies – OG plastics and City Plastics – were found to still be manufacturing thin plastics, often used to make plastic bags, despite a...

Gradual phaseout will begin in March as part of government plan to outlaw all single-use bags by 2021Tunisia has announced plans to stop its supermarkets and pharmacies from using single-use plastic bags from next month before phasing them out completely in 2021.Plastic pollution has been a growing problem in the north African country in recent years, along with the challenges presented by its ancient...

Save the Children urges people taking part in its charity event to source sweaters through clothes swaps and vintage shopsSave the Children is calling on people to hold clothes swaps and scour vintage shops rather than buy new Christmas jumpers, after research found that 95% of the novelty items for sale contained plastic.The appeal for consumer “sustainability” comes ahead of the charity’s annual Christmas...

Study of chicken egg samples reveals presence of dangerous chemical compounds around areas where waste is dumpedPlastic waste exports to south-east Asia have been implicated in extreme levels of toxins entering the human food chain in Indonesia.A new study that sampled chicken eggs around sites in the country where plastic waste accumulates identified alarming levels of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls long recognised as extremely...

Punjab joins regions where polythene bags are illegal and stiff fines take effect in Islamabad amid demands for alternativesPunjab has become the latest region in Pakistan to ban plastic bags, as the country battles to reduce single-use plastics that are damaging the environment.So far there is no date for implementation in Pakistan’s most populous state. The south-eastern province of Sindh has announced it will...

Judges overturn injunction won by plastic manufacturers after thin plastic bags were outlawedMalawi’s highest court has imposed a ban on plastic bags, a huge milestone for the government and environmental charities who beat off challenges from some of the country’s big manufacturers. The government imposed the ban on thin plastic bags in 2015, but the move was overturned by the high court after a...