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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.

This week, the city of Austin, Texas implemented a new rule that prevents restaurants from tossing wasted food straight into the trash.

On January 31, The Hong Kong Legislative Council voted 49 to 4 to phase out the sale of antique ivory. As Tiffany May at The New York Times reports, the city will ban all sale of ivory, new and antique, by 2021, closing a system that poachers have previously exploited. The move will help staunch a significant player in the ivory market, which drives the destruction of elephant populations. In recent years, the United Nations estimates that poachers kill up to 100 elephants each day, which has devastated their populations.

It is not among the world's biggest producers of oil and gas, nor the biggest consumers, but France is hoping to become an environmental pioneer with its decision not to issue any more oil and gas exploration licences. The government, under newly elected President Emmanuel Macron, has vowed to take the step as part of a transition towards more environment-friendly energy sources.

France yesterday unveiled plans to reduce its carbon footprint by ceasing sales of gas and diesel vehicles by 2040 and then becoming carbon neutral by 2050, Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot said. France also plans to end coal-fired energy production by 2022, cut nuclear power use from 75% to 50% in eight years and halt imports of unsustainably grown palm oil and soy beans.

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.

The organizations cite research undertaken by universities, government agencies, laboratories, plastic trade associations and NGOs that have concluded oxo-degradable plastics are not suited for long-term reuse, recycling or composting. Instead, evidence has shown that these plastics often fragment into small pieces often not visible to the naked eye; those microplastic particles in turn often end up in both soil and oceans.

Developing coutnries are trying to defeat a policy that would require knowledge and consent to hazardous waste material being shipped into that country

Waitrose has joined Tesco as the latest UK retailer to take seafood giant John West to task over its fishing practices, threatening to remove its canned tuna from store shelves if it does not follow through on its promise to improve. The decision will pile pressure on the embattled tuna company following last week's announcement by Tesco that John West would be banned if it continued using harmful fishing practices.

Microbeads are bad news, but fortunately most of us know that by now. There has been growing resistance to the miniscule pieces of plastic, added to personal care products for their ability to exfoliate skin, or sometimes just to look pretty in a see-through bottle. These microbeads, however, wreak environmental havoc as soon as they're washed down the drain. The outcome is described here by campaign group 'Beat the Microbead':

Norway became the first country to commit to zero deforestation. Norway also reportedly plans to move its carbon neutrality target year from 2050 to 2030.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil has released its 2016 RSPO Impact Report, which highlights the following accomplishments for 2016: * Increased membership by 29% over the previous year. * Achieved 83 million hectares (10,900 square miles) of certified palm oil producing lands across 14 nations. * 40 RSPO growers have phased out the toxic herbicide paraquat, with another 33 firms saying they are on track to ban the use of this chemical. * Doubled the number of certified independent smallholders. * Closed two-thirds of the labor grievances filed since 2009.

Americans are being exposed to significantly lower levels of some phthalates - chemicals often referred to as plasticizers - that were banned from children's products in 2008, but exposures to other forms of these chemicals are rising steeply, according to a study led by researchers at University of California, San Francisco.

France introduced restrictions on Paris drivers today, allowing them to use their cars only on alternate days, as the city deals with a bad bout of smog.

Massachusetts recently enacted the most aggressive mandatory composting program in history, to affect supermarkets, colleges, nursing homes, and prisons.

The first item on the long list of issues to be addressed at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week: Climate change. On Tuesday President Barack Obama will address a group of world leaders at the U.N. Climate Summit, a one-day meeting hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and open to leaders of all 193 U.N. member states, though not all will attend, plus members of the private sector.

"AB 96 passed 26-13, reflecting widespread support for the measure, which aims to take a step toward reducing pressure on wild elephants and rhinos that are being poached at unprecedented levels across Africa and Asia. "

The US Green Building Council joined the Global Energy Efficiency Accelerator Platform, a membership initiative with the goal to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030. The program was launched during the UN Climate Summit two months ago under UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's Sustainable Energy for All initiative.

Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson are among the companies that have either limited the use of triclosan - a commonly used anti-bacterial ingredient - in their products or announced plans to phase it out completely.

Ritz cheese and cracker snack packaging, paint color and yellow spray paint have the highest levels of the banned substance polychlorinated biphenyl among products tested, according to a report released Thursday by the Washington State Department of Ecology.