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The European parliament has overwhelmingly backed a wide-ranging ban on single-use plastics in an effort to tackle pollution in seas, fields and waterways. Under the proposed directive, items such as plastic straws, cotton swabs, disposable plastic plates and cutlery would be banned by 2021, and 90% of plastic bottle recycled by 2025.

The government has charted a zero-waste plan that aims to abolish single-use plastic by 2030. Malaysia is the first country in Southeast Asia to take bold action to tackle plastic pollution.

Environmental group Greenpeace on Thursday accused Nestle of not doing enough to reduce single-use plastics polluting landfills and oceans.

The final straw: Ben & Jerry's announces plan to eliminate single-use plastic in Scoop Shops worldwide

The Coca-Cola Company, General Mills, Kraft Foods and the other 300-plus food companies that are members of the Grocery Manufacturers Association will soon lobby the US food safety regulator and Congress for a single federal standard covering oversight and labeling of new genetically modified foods, Reuters reports.

The EU's Plastics Strategy aims to cut out non-recyclable plastics by 2030, while cutting down on single-use plastics and restricting microplastics, all by establishing a new circular economy around the material. The strategy lays out a few key steps to achieve this. The first is to introduce new rules on packaging that improve their recyclability and increase the demand for recycled plastics, thereby making recycling profitable for businesses.

India turned their hosting of this year's World Environment Day into far more than a symbolic act when it announced plans Tuesday to eliminate all single-use plastics by 2022, UN Environment reported.

A new product could help people in remote, parched places gain easy access to clean drinking water. The Warka Water, a 30-foot-tall tower shaped like a vase, uses a straw mesh and a nylon net to capture airborne humidity in the form of dew, which it then collects for human use. The device can reportedly gather more than 25 gallons of potable water in a single day, even in desert conditions

When Mexico City's new international airport is finished in four years, it will be one of the largest in the world, spanning over half a million square meters. It will also be the most sustainable airport ever built. Instead of a group of average warehouse-like terminals, the airport will use a single giant structure wrapped in a unique skin that lets in natural light and air, collects rainwater, and provides incredible views of planes circling the sky.

Norsepower Oy and Bore say the sea trial of Norsepower's Rotor Sail - a new wind propulsion technology for ships - verified by NAPA and supported by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, confirm fuel savings of 2.6 percent using a single small Rotor Sail on a route in the North Sea. With these fuel savings, the technology has a payback period of 4 years, the companies say.

Mayor Bill de Blasio banned the possession, sale, or provision of polystyrene-based foam containers and loose fill packaging in New York City. The measure will go into effect on July 1, 2015.

By April of this year, its 600-plus Scoop Shops around the world will only offer wooden spoons, rather than plastic ones. Paper straws will also only be available upon request.

In a statement provided to EcoWatch, Greenpeace criticized Nestlé's statement for not including clear targets or a timeline to reduce and eventually phase out single-use plastics.

Lazada, an e-commerce giant in Southeast Asia is yet another entity that adopted World Environment Day's Beat Plastic Pollution theme. The website offered all visitors a list of suggestions that could substitute for single-use plastic items like plastic bags, cups, straws and even diapers.

To counter the impact of unsustainable palm oil production, such as deforestation and habitat degradation, the European Parliament has approved a resolution to develop a single certification scheme for palm oil entering the EU market and phase out the use of vegetable oils that drive deforestation by 2020. It is Parliament's first resolution on the issue, but it is now up to the European Commission to act upon it.

As an ever-expanding group of U.S. businesses commit to using more renewable energy to power their operations, a new study has found that for many companies, cost savings is the single most important reason for doing so. This is according to results of the first major survey of large electricity users since President Donald Trump announced his decision to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, conducted by SED Research. The Sept. 13 report, "Post-Paris: the State of Corporate Renewable Energy Sourcing," analyzes responses from executives at 94 companies and institutions, more than 40 of which are in the Fortune 500.

General Mills, Unilever and the Food Waste Reduction Alliance have joined the USDA's Food Waste Challenge as founding partners.