Interesting Ideas

Researchers say waste dumping and climate breakdown have contributed to rise in brick, concrete and glass on beaches

As much as half of some British beaches’ coarse sediments may consist of human-made materials such as brick, concrete, glass and industrial waste, a study has suggested.

Climate breakdown, which has caused more frequent and destructive coastal storms, has led to an increase in these substances on beaches. Six sites on the Firth of Forth, an estuary on Scotland’s east coast joining the River Forth to the North Sea, were surveyed to better understand the makeup of “urban beaches”.

With government action stalled and living in ‘inhumane’ conditions, families in San José are making plans to relocate

In Emilio Peña Delgado’s home, several photos hang on the wall. One shows him standing in front of a statue with his wife and oldest son in the centre of San José and smiling. In another, his two sons sit in front of caricatures from the film Cars. For him, the photos capture moments of joy that feel distant when he returns home to La Carpio, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital.

Delgado migrated with his family from Nicaragua to Costa Rica when he was 10, as his parents sought greater stability. When he started a family of his own, his greatest hope was to give his children the security he had lacked. But now, that hope is often interrupted by the threat of extreme weather events.

Summary of Week of Action and What to Expect Next Washington, DC — Last week, Sierra Club joined partners from across the country for a “Make Polluters Pay” Week of Action, a coordinated set of advocacy actions and events dedicated to holding Big Oil and Gas companies accountable for their climate ... [continued]

The post MEMO: Sierra Club & Partners Rally to Make Polluters Pay for Climate Disasters appeared first on CleanTechnica.

With some of Ukraine’s most valuable biodiversity sites and science facilities under occupation, experts at Sofiyivka Park in Uman are struggling to preserve the country’s natural history

In the basement laboratory of the National Dendrological Park Sofiyivka, Larisa Kolder tends to dozens of specimens of Moehringia hypanicabetween power outages. Just months earlier, she and her team at this microclonal plant propagation laboratory in Uman, Ukraine, received 23 seeds of the rare flower.

Listed as threatened in Ukraine’s Red Book of endangered species, Moehringia grows nowhere else in the wild but the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine. Of those 23 seeds, only two grew into plants that Kolder and her colleagues could clone in their laboratory, but now her lab is home to a small grove of Moehringia seedlings, including 80 that have put down roots in a small but vital win for biodiversity conservation amid Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Chagossian people would be allowed to fish in area that has teemed with life since ban was introduced in 2010

One of the most precious marine reserves in the world, home to sharks, turtles and rare tropical fish, will be opened to some fishing for the first time in 16 years under the UK government’s deal to hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

Allowing non-commercial fishing in the marine protected area (MPA) is seen as an essential part of the Chagossian people’s return to the islands, as the community previously relied on fishing as their main livelihood. But some conservationists have raised the alarm, as nature has thrived in the waters of the Indian Ocean since it was protected from fishing.

Sector bounces back as consumers focus on provenance and healthy eating, but is still well behind Europe

Consumers searching for healthy food from trusted sources have fuelled the UK organic market’s biggest boom in two decades, according to vegetable box seller Riverford.

The delivery business, which sells meat, cheese, cookbooks and recipe boxes alongside vegetables, recorded a 6% increase in sales to £117m in the year to May 2025, as the UK organic food and drink market grew by almost 9% in that year, according to new figures from the Soil Association. The strong growth, significantly outpacing the wider food market, helped the employee-owned business give a £1.1m bonus to workers.

Regarding December’s best selling electric vehicles, the big news is that thanks to a strong month in China, Tesla partly recovered from the hangover on the US market and saw its best sellers return to leading positions. The Model Y (132,327 units, down 3% YoY) won the best seller spot, ... [continued]

The post 20 Best Selling EV Models in the World in 2025 — Tesla Makes an (Increasingly Rare) #1 + #2 Win appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Volunteer workers say increasing case numbers and dozens of dead birds raise fears spread is wider than recorded

Members of the public and charity volunteers are working to contain a suspected outbreak of bird flu among swans in the Thames Valley, amid signs that confirmed cases are continuing to rise.

Since October, 324 cases of bird flu in swans have been recorded by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha), which is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Of these, 39 were recorded in the first four weeks of 2026 alone.

Support from more than 20 countries propels National Trust to its target to protect chalk figure and local wildlife

It feels like a very British monument: a huge chalk figure carved into a steep Dorset hillside that for centuries has intrigued lovers of English folklore and legend. But an appeal to raise money to help protect the Cerne giant – and the wildlife that shares the landscape it towers over – has shown that its allure stretches far beyond the UK.

Donations have flooded in from more than 20 countries including Australia, Japan and Iceland, and on Tuesday, the National Trust confirmed it had reached its fundraising target to buy land around the giant.

UPDATED AS OF FEBRUARY 2. Zurich’s public transport authority, Verkehrsbetriebe Zürich (VBZ), has officially launched one of its largest fleet procurements in years, opting for a new competitive tender for battery-electric buses rather than relying on existing framework contracts. The move, first reported by BusWorld and CH Media, was formalized ... [continued]

The post Zurich Transit Operator Prepares Fresh €150 Million Electric Bus Tender After Supplier Setbacks appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Priestcliffe, Derbyshire: The limestone walls in this parish are festooned with luminous mosses, in a variety that’s often beyond our comprehension

The word bryophyte refers to a group of plants that may have colonised terrestrial Earth almost half a billion years ago. They need water to reproduce sexually and they love rain. So it’s hardly surprising that Britain is an important archipelago for them, with the two main groups, liverwort and mosses, represented by nearly 300 and 770 species respectively. This is a 20th of all the world’s bryophytes.

Perhaps the best summary of the British public’s sense of the group was offered by a friend recently, who said that he hadn’t been aware that there was more than one bryophyte. Moss doesn’t occupy our conscious minds. It lives at the periphery, trembling on the edge of our sense of things. Especially when it rains, because moss is then even more luminous.

After publishing our report on the top selling EV models in the world in December and 2025 as a whole, as well as an overall report on global EV progress, here’s our complementary report on the auto brands and groups leading EV sales around the world. Geely on the Way ... [continued]

The post Global EV Sales Leaders — Top Selling Brands & OEMs in 2025 appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The Chicago Auto Show will return to McCormick Place from February 7 to 16, 2026, with a lineup that underscores the show’s evolving role in the US auto market: less about global debuts and more about consumer-ready vehicles, electrification pathways, and hands-on engagement. The small ratio of pure EVs to ... [continued]

The post There Will Be More EVs (and NEVs) at the Chicago Auto Show 2026 appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Events such as Storm Chandra take a terrible toll on ecosystems, but nature can be part of the solution for mitigating flood waters

“The flood waters are only good for scavenger species,” says Steve Hussey, searching hard for a silver lining to last week’s deluges brought by Storm Chandra. When the waters recede, crows and ravens will feast on the carrion of hedgehogs, dormice and other small animals unable to escape the rising water, he says.

“It sounds very apocalyptic, doesn’t it?” says Hussey, a communications officer with the Devon Wildlife Trust.

December was a Record Month! There were over 2.1 million plugin vehicles registered in December, with both BEVs (+13% YoY) and PHEVs (+6% YoY) rising. With the USA EV market still in hangover mode and China slowing down, it was up to the Rest of the World (+51% YoY) to ... [continued]

The post Global EV Sales Leaders — 2025 Top Markets & Powertrains appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Ministers’ proposals to tackle ‘forever chemicals’ fail to match tougher stance taken in Europe, say experts

Environmental campaigners have criticised a “crushingly disappointing” UK government plan to tackle “forever chemicals”, which they warn risks locking in decades of avoidable harm to people and the environment.

The government said its Pfas action plan set out a “clear framework” of “coordinated action … to understand where these chemicals are coming from, how they spread and how to reduce public and environmental exposure”.

New fast EV chargers will be installed along Interstate 90 and US routes 97, 195, and 395 in the state of Washington. Almost 100 fast charging ports will be installed at 14 different locations in about two years. Funding will come from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, although President ... [continued]

The post 96 New Fast EV Chargers Planned For Washington State appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The Porsche Cayenne Electric is already in production, just two months after it was unveiled. It features faster charging than competitors.

The post Porsche Cayenne EV Production Begins As New Car Sales Tumble In Norway appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Volvo is among the EV makers adopting cell-to-body battery technology that saves weight and money while improving battery performance (cropped, courtesy of Volvo).

The post The Cell-To-Body EV Movement Is Leaving Some Automakers Flat-Footed appeared first on CleanTechnica.

At the 2025 SEMA Show, Toyota presented a battery-electric concept car that signals how the company is thinking about motorsport in an electric future. The bZ Time Attack Concept was developed not as a styling exercise, but as a functional prototype to evaluate how a BEV platform behaves under racing ... [continued]

The post Toyota Uses bZ Time Attack Concept to Probe the Limits of EV Racing appeared first on CleanTechnica.