
-
Thomas, Bednarek hit jackpot at Grand Slam Track meet
-
Rodman on target as USA beat Brazil in Olympic rematch
-
'Hands Off!' Anti-Trump Americans flood Washington
-
Harman leads by three at Texas Open
-
Barcelona draw to increase Liga lead after Real Madrid stumble
-
Ecuador mounts anti-drug op overseen by Blackwater founder
-
Pegula rallies to reach Charleston final
-
Nick Rockett flies to victory in magical Mullins Grand National
-
Ovechkin on the brink of the 'impossible'
-
Anthony, Bird to enter basketball Hall of Fame
-
'Phenomenal' Munster edge O'Gara's La Rochelle to reach Champions Cup quarters
-
Munster edge O'Gara's La Rochelle to reach Champions Cup quarters
-
Rahul, Jaiswal fire as Delhi and Rajasthan register big IPL wins
-
Aston Villa beat Forest for seventh straight win ahead of PSG trip
-
Jaiswal, Archer help Rajasthan thrash Punjab in IPL
-
Inter's title charge stalls after throwing away points at Parma
-
Real Madrid stumble at home to Valencia in Liga
-
Leading garment producer Bangladesh holds crisis talks on US tariffs
-
PSG win 13th French title ahead of Aston Villa Champions League clash
-
Nick Rockett storms to victory in the 'Mullins' Grand National
-
Despair and sadness follow death of Malian musical great Amadou
-
Arsenal held by Everton, Wolves push Ipswich closer to relegation
-
Lions contender Prendergast fires Leinster to Champions Cup quarters
-
Nick Rockett wins the 'Mullins' Grand National for father and son
-
Last-gasp Buendia goal keeps Leverkusen's Bundesliga title hopes alive
-
Video shows last minutes before Gaza aid workers' deaths, Red Crescent says
-
Zverev 'mentally' affected by Australian Open defeat
-
Rahul guides Delhi to third straight IPL victory
-
Arsenal draw at Everton to edge Liverpool closer to Premier League title
-
Senate Republicans move forward with Trump tax cuts
-
Sinner regrets 'unfair' doping ban as he prepares return to courts
-
Isa hat-trick powers Toulon into Champions Cup quarters in Saracens thriller
-
'Hang tough, it won't be easy': Trump defiant on tariffs
-
Zelensky slams 'weak' US reply to Russian strike on his hometown
-
Musiala hamstring tear compounds Bayern's injury crisis
-
Selfies, goals and cheers at South Africa's grannies World Cup
-
Tsunoda frustrated with 15th in Red Bull qualifying debut
-
Rain forecast adds new element to combustible Japanese GP
-
Ukraine mourns 18 killed in Russian missile strike
-
Germany's Mueller to leave Bayern Munich after 25 years
-
India's Modi clinches defence, energy deals in Sri Lanka
-
Verstappen snatches 'special' pole for Japan GP with lap record
-
Cambodia hails opening of naval base renovated by China
-
Verstappen snatches 'insane' pole for Japan GP in track record
-
Thousands rally for South Korea's impeached ex-president Yoon
-
New Zealand hammer Pakistan by 43 runs to sweep ODI series 3-0
-
Myanmar quake death toll passes 3,300: state media
-
India's Modi in Sri Lanka for defence and energy deals
-
'No one to return to': Afghans fear Pakistan deportation
-
Fractious Republicans seek unity over Trump tax cuts
RBGPF | 100% | 69.02 | $ | |
SCS | -0.56% | 10.68 | $ | |
VOD | -10.24% | 8.5 | $ | |
RELX | -6.81% | 48.16 | $ | |
RYCEF | -18.79% | 8.25 | $ | |
NGG | -5.25% | 65.93 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.13% | 22.29 | $ | |
BTI | -5.17% | 39.86 | $ | |
CMSD | 0.7% | 22.83 | $ | |
GSK | -6.79% | 36.53 | $ | |
RIO | -6.88% | 54.67 | $ | |
JRI | -7.19% | 11.96 | $ | |
BCE | 0.22% | 22.71 | $ | |
BCC | 0.85% | 95.44 | $ | |
AZN | -7.98% | 68.46 | $ | |
BP | -10.43% | 28.38 | $ |

Plastic, chemical pollution beyond planet's safe limit: study
The torrent of man-made chemical and plastic waste worldwide has massively exceeded limits safe for humanity or the planet, and production caps are urgently needed, scientists have concluded for the first time.
There are an estimated 350,000 different manufactured chemicals on the market and large volumes of them end up in the environment.
"The impacts that we're starting to see today are large enough to be impacting crucial functions of planet Earth and its systems", Bethanie Carney Almroth, co-author of a new study told AFP in an interview.
The study, by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, comes ahead of a UN meeting in Nairobi at the end of the month on tackling plastic pollution "from source to sea", UN Environment Programme head Inger Andersen said on Monday.
Chemicals and plastics are affecting biodiversity, piling additional stress on already stressed ecosystems.
Pesticides kill living organisms indiscriminately and plastics are ingested by living things.
"Some chemicals are interfering with hormone systems, disrupting growth, metabolism and reproduction in wildlife," Carney Almroth said.
While greater efforts are needed to prevent these substances being released into the environment, scientists are now pushing for more drastic solutions, such as production caps.
- 'Enough is enough' -
Recycling has so far yielded only mediocre results.
Less than 10 percent of the world's plastic is currently recycled, even as production has doubled to 367 million tonnes since 2000.
Today, the total weight of plastic on Earth is now four times the biomass of all living animals, according to recent studies.
"What we're trying to say is that maybe we have to say, 'Enough is enough'. Maybe we can't tolerate more," the Sweden-based researcher said.
"Maybe we have to put a cap on production. Maybe we need to say, 'We can't produce more than this'."
For several years, the Stockholm Resilience Centre has been conducting studies on "planetary boundaries" in nine areas that influence Earth's stability, such as greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater usage and the ozone layer.
The aim is to determine if mankind is in a "safe operating space" or if the limits are being exceeded and threaten the future of the planet.
The impact of so-called "novel entities" -- or man-made chemical products such as plastics, antibiotics, pesticides, and non-natural metals -- has until now been a big question.
And the answer is complex.
"We are only beginning to understand the large-scale, long-term effects of these exposures," Carney Almroth said.
Not only are there thousands of these products but the data on the risks they pose is often non-existent or classified as corporate secrets.
Additionally, the chemicals are relatively recent, most of them developed in the past 70 years.
"And we're talking about 350,000 different substances,' Carney Almroth said.
"We don't have knowledge on the vast majority of those, in terms of how much are produced or their stability. Or their fate in the environment or their toxicity."
"We know what some of them are. For most of them, we have no clue."
Even the most comprehensive databases, such as the European Union's REACH inventory, only cover 150,000 products, and only a third of those have been the subject of detailed toxicity studies.
- 'No silver bullet' -
As a result, the team of researchers focused on what is known, and this partial information was enough to draw an alarming conclusion.
"Looking at changes over time and trends in production volumes lost in the environment ... and connecting that to the little bit we do know about impacts, we could say that every arrow is pointing in the wrong direction", Carney Almroth said.
There is still "time to revert this situation" but it will take "urgent and ambitious actions ... at an international level", she added.
Furthermore, "there's no silver bullet".
"No one answer is going to solve all of this, because a lot of these chemicals and materials are things that we use and that are necessary for our lives as of right now," she said.
Regardless of how much effort is made during the production or waste management phase, production volumes need to come down, she stressed.
"This seems very obvious to say but it's only recently accepted as truth: The more you produce, the more you release".
D.Johnson--AT