An exit poll in Ireland suggests a dead heat between Sinn Féin and the taoiseach’s party Fine Gael in the general election, with Fianna Fáil only slightly behind.

The survey of first preference votes is the first real indication of how Ireland voted after three weeks of canvassing in the snap election called by Simon Harris.

The poll put Sinn Féin, which went into the election as the third most popular party, in first place with 21.1% share of the vote followed by Harris’s party at 21%, slightly edging Fianna Fáil, the leader in the race in the latest polls this week, at 19.5%.

Fianna Fáil’s outgoing finance minister said it was clear “a lot of seats were going down to the wire” and the data was in the “margin of error”.

Data on second preferences showed Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, led by Micheál Martin, doing better with 20% share of the vote each. Sinn Féin scored 17% on second preferences, according to the exit poll. The margin of error from the poll is 1.4%.

Damien English, for Fine Gael, told the Irish broadcaster RTÉ it suggested “a very positive result” for the party and could translate to “37 or 38 seats, which will mean 20 news TDs [Teachtaí Dála, members of the Irish parliament].”

The leftist party, led by Mary Lou McDonald will be heartened by the suggestion it has slightly shaded the country’s two main political bodies given it went into the campaign battered by scandals and decline in popularity in its core base over its migration policy.

Sinn Féin’s director of elections, Matt Carthy, hailed his party’s performance.
He said it marked a significant turnaround from the party’s disappointing showing in June’s local and European elections.

“When you consider where we would have been coming out of the local and European elections, I have to say it’s a phenomenal result,” Carthy told RTÉ.

He added: “We do recall that in 2020 the exit poll actually undershot Sinn Féin to the tune of 2%-plus. So if that was to transpire tomorrow morning, there is every chance that Sinn Féin will emerge from these elections as the largest political party.”

Carthy would not be drawn on what the exit poll might mean for coalition formation. “This is a hugely positive exit poll but the real votes will be counted tomorrow, so let’s see where they land,” he said.

Harris appears to have fared slightly better than polls this week, which projected a six-point drop in vote share from 25% at the outset of the three week campaign to 19%.

The survey of about 5,000 voters who had cast their ballot during the day was carried out by Ipsos MRBI for RTÉ, The Irish Times, TG4 and Trinity College Dublin. It comes with two strong health warnings – it reflects first preference votes only and with a margin of error.

Gary Murphy, professor of politics at Dublin City University, told RTÉ that Fine Gael would be relieved with the exit poll given the “quite dramatic and precipitous” decline in popularity according to polls this week.

The fourth largest group is predicted to be independents at 12.7% of the share, far below the projections of close to 20% in some earlier polls.

Irish results are based on a proportional representation system, which makes the outcome more difficult to predict and the result longer to emerge. Voters rank candidates, with second preferences going to those choices as long as they are still in the race and have not already been elected or eliminated.

Counting in Friday’s ballot will not begin until 9am on Saturday, with close-to-final results expected by the end of Sunday. Tallies by the parties, which operate a parallel informal counting operation in all 43 constituencies, are expected to reveal their projections of the election results at around lunchtime on Saturday.

Unless there is an outright majority for one party, which is highly improbable, it could be weeks before a government is formed as parties negotiate and horse-trade over the makeup of a new coalition government.

The Dáil consists of 174 seats with around 88 needed for a clear majority. However, a coalition is more probable than a majority government.

Meanwhile the leader of the Social Democrat party announced the birth of a baby daughter on the day of the election. Holly Cairns, who is standing for re-election in the Cork South-West constituency, posted on Instagram: “She’s here. We are completely in love with her.”

The UK has increased its contribution to the World Bank, in a move that will boost prospects for climate finance.

Next week, at a meeting in Seoul of the International Development Association (IDA) – the body that funds the World Bank’s support for low-income countries – the UK will put forward £1.98bn in funding over three years, an increase of about 40% on the previous pledge.

Anneliese Dodds, the development minister, said: “Britain is back with a voice on the world stage. When we said we would take a new approach to development, built on genuine partnerships and based on respect, we meant it. Leaders of low-income countries around the world called for stronger IDA contributions and we listened.”

The World Bank and its fellow multilateral development banks (MDBs) will play a key role in providing the climate finance, mostly in the form of grants and loans, which will be needed to meet commitments made last week at the Cop29 UN climate summit.

Experts and campaigners welcomed the cash injection. Avinash Persaud, climate advisor to the president of the Inter American Development Bank, said: “I recognise the challenging circumstances in which this commitment has been made to some of the most vulnerable countries. I personally wish it was more, but I very much welcome the strong endorsement this makes to the multilateral system.”

Mafalda Duarte, the executive director of the Green Climate Fund, said: “The UK government is fiscally constrained, so this is quite positive.”

Adrian Lovett, the UK executive director of the campaign group ONE, said: “Every pound invested by the UK in IDA helps to catalyse far more from others, ensuring the maximum value to British taxpayers. We look to other countries, including France, Canada and Sweden, to now make their pledges and complete this investment package.”

Recriminations continue to fly after the Cop29 summit, which ended on Sunday amid rancour and accusations that the rich world had betrayed the poor, and that the hosts had stage-managed the conference.

Under the deal that was finally agreed, the governments of developed countries agreed only to supply $300bn (£236bn) of the $1.3tn a year that developing countries have been promised by 2035, in part through the MDBs. The rest is likely to come from the private sector and new forms of finance.

While rich nations have been criticised the most for failing to put forward enough cash for the developing world to tackle climate breakdown, there has also been criticism of the Cop presidency, held by Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s environment minister and a former oil company executive. Writing in the Guardian after the talks finished, Babayev blamed “western nations” for being “simply immovable” on the cash on offer, which he said was “too low”.

Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) who oversaw the 2015 Paris agreement and is the co-founder of the Global Optimism thinktank, was critical of Babayev’s comments.

“It is such a betrayal of the role of a Cop president, [who] needs to hold the information of what is going on very tightly and use it for common benefit, to come out and say: this country did that and that country did whatever, and try to lay blame at the feet of different countries, for something that should have been managed very differently,” she said, in her Outrage and Optimism podcast. “I’m really aghast. I’ve never seen this.”

Babayev remains in charge of the UN climate negotiations until next November, when Brazil will take over for the Cop30 talks.

Figueres said the presidency had failed to prepare the ground at Cop29 for a successful deal. “A very, very complicated agreement can never be reached at the last moment. It has to be put on the table and matured throughout the year, not throughout the Cop, which is only two weeks,” she said. “The responsibility of the presidency should have been to begin to mature the landing ground throughout the entire year … not to expect a miraculous solution to evolve during the two weeks.”

Yvo de Boer, another former executive secretary of UNFCCC, who oversaw the Copenhagen Cop in 2009, which was also characterised by vituperation and chaotic scenes, said: “The Cop presidency serves the interest of all parties. It should therefore avoid any impression of serving national interests. The solution is to have a presidency team that is distinct from the national delegation.”

Duarte said: “I have no doubt the presidency did the best they could.”

Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s father will stand trial next year on charges that include abusing the double Olympic ­champion and threatening to “beat ­him to death”.

Ingebrigtsen, who won gold medals over 1500m in Tokyo and 5,000m in Paris, also alleges that his father and former coach, Gjert, “punched and kicked” him over a 10-year period from when he was a schoolboy.

The Norwegian newspaper VG said it had seen the indictment and that state prosecutors have charged Gjert with beating two of his children at a time when he was also their coach.

According to the paper, Gjert is also accused of calling his son a “thug” and a “terrorist”, and threatened to “shame him and knock him out of health”. Ingebrigtsen Sr denies the allegations. According to VG, the trial is likely to last about eight weeks, with 30 to 40 witnesses expected to be called.

The assistant attorney Mette Yvonne Larsen added: “This was as expected based on the evidence ­situation. It is a very serious indictment that extends over a period of many years.”

Gjert and his sons became part of a long-running and popular reality television show in Norway, but in 2022 he stepped down as the coach of “Team Ingebrigtsen”, apparently for ­medical reasons.

However, Jakob and his brothers Henrik and Filip – who are also accomplished middle-distance runners – subsequently called on the Norwegian athletics federation to help them avoid Gjert in ­international events, given their father coaches the 2023 world 1500m bronze medallist, Narve Gilje Nordås.

“We have grown up with a father who has been very aggressive and controlling and who has used physical violence and threats as part of his upbringing,” the brothers wrote. “We still feel discomfort and fear which has been in us since childhood.”

According to VG, Jakob has since told investigators about the alleged physical and mental abuse both towards himself and his siblings.

“He has explained that he has been hit in the head several times by his father, Gjert,” the paper says. “In one situation, the abuse lasted for 15 to 30 minutes, the running star has explained to the police. Another episode concerns kicking. The situations Jakob Ingebrigtsen has explained in questioning extend over a number of years.

“Several other family members have given explanations that support what Jakob Ingebrigtsen has told in questioning, according to VG’s information.”

John Christian Elden and Heidi Reisvang, the lawyers acting for Gjert, maintain their client rejects the accusations and says “the decision on prosecution has been rushed”.

In comments made last year, Gjert added: “The statements they make are baseless. I have never used violence against my children. That I have weaknesses as a father, and have been too much of a coach, is a realisation I have also come to, albeit far too late.”

A landfill site in Staffordshire which has plagued residents with noxious fumes for years has been told to permanently shut down, with local campaigners hailing the news as “absolutely amazing”.

The Environment Agency said it had brought the closure of Walleys Quarry forward after “exhausting other enforcement options”, and said it had to stop accepting new waste from Friday.

It said Walleys Quarry Ltd, which runs the site, had been “given time to put effective measures in place to manage emissions and yet failed to do so”.

The landfill site is in the village of Silverdale, just west of Newcastle-under-Lyme, with the emissions affecting residents in many of the surrounding towns and villages.

“It’s absolutely fantastic. It’s so long overdue. It’s a huge relief, just elation,” said the local resident and campaigner Helen Vincent. “We honestly didn’t see this coming. Everyone thought it would play out until the end of its permit. But it’s absolutely amazing, it’s the only topic of conversation right now.

“It’s not going to solve the problem with the gases straight away, we know that. But it’s a huge win and hopefully they will do as they’re supposed to, and cap everything off.”

People living in the area around the quarry have complained of itchy eyes, sore throats and headaches from the fumes, while some said it had worsened their health conditions such as asthma.

In 2021, a local family brought a landmark legal case against the Environment Agency (EA), arguing it was failing to protect the life of five-year-old Mathew Richards.

They said his respiratory health problems were being worsened by hydrogen sulphide fumes from the landfill, and his life expectancy was being reduced.

The high court ruled in the family’s favour and ordered the EA to take action, but the court of appeal quashed the ruling.

Mathew’s mother, Rebecca Currie, told the BBC after the closure notice that she “never thought this day was going to come”.

“This is amazing for our community, but obviously there are still a lot of sick people in this community and this should never have gone on this long,” she said.

Adam Jogee, the MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, said: “So many people have campaigned for so long in the rain, in the sleet, in the snow.

“I think there’s a massive sense of relief, there’s a massive sense of happiness and celebration. Once we’ve had the opportunity to celebrate, we can get to work to finally get the answers we need to how on earth we ended up in this mess for so long.”

The EA notice will start the process of permanently closing the landfill, and Walleys Quarry will be required to permanently cap the remainder of the site and install further landfill gas management infrastructure.

Lorries will only be allowed to enter the site to bring in materials for those purposes.

Vincent said: “We know they’re probably going to appeal but I can’t see they’ve got a leg to stand on.” She added that in recent months the fumes had been “worse than ever”.

“Just the other day my house was full of fumes all day, it was absolutely horrendous. And I work from home so I can’t get away from it. It has been really bad, especially with the cold weather,” she said.

Simon Tagg, the leader of Newcastle-under-Lyme borough council, said complaints to the council about the foul gas odours “have soared this year” and were already more than double the total for the whole of 2023.

“I hope this action by the EA is the first step to a permanent solution for our residents,” he said. “I would encourage residents to carry on reporting the foul smells every time they happen to both the council and the EA.”

“The noise never stops,” says Karla Hart, her voice competing with the hum of approaching helicopters. “I can feel them before I see them.” She looks at her phone to check a website that monitors air traffic and identifies operators. Hart wants to know whether the pilots are adhering to legal flight routes.

A few minutes later, five helicopters, flying in formation, crisscross the grey October skies above Hart’s home in Juneau, Alaska’s capital. “I get groups of two to five helicopters flying over my house every 20 minutes. On any given day, that adds up to 50 to 75 flights. It’s impossible to enjoy my garden or concentrate on work.”

For Hart and other Juneau residents, the noise from helicopters shuttling cruise tourists to remote glaciers is one of the many reminders of how their lives are being upended by a city that has embraced industrial tourism.

Juneau is one of the US’s most remote towns, accessible only by air or sea. The waters surrounding it are the traditional fishing grounds of Alaska’s Indigenous communities. It is wedged between towering mountains and the Gastineau Channel, a dramatic vista for more than 1.5 million cruise passengers who visit annually. Juneau was historically reliant on timber and gold, but as those industries have declined, the city now depends on tourism and government sector jobs.

Cruise season runs from April to October, with as many as five vessels docking daily in the heart of the historic district. Ships such as the Ovation of the Seas and Norwegian Bliss, with passenger capacities exceeding 4,000 plus crew, arrive in the morning and depart by nightfall, only to be replaced by new arrivals. This cycle continues until the treacherous Taku Winds, with gusts reaching more than 100mph, signal the end of the season.

The rhythm of the cruise season dictates daily life for Juneau’s 32,000 residents. Local people monitor the schedule provided by the Alaska Cruise Ship Association and avoid the centre during peak cruise hours. Traditional seasons have been replaced by two distinct periods: cruise and non-cruise.

Under an agreement with the City of Juneau, up to 16,000 cruise passengers disembark daily from Sunday to Friday, with a cap of 12,000 on Saturdays. Annually, cruise passengers outnumber the local population by 50 to one.

Hart eagerly anticipates the end of the cruise season. It will offer a break from traffic congestion on the town’s single-lane road, and the relentless noise from aircraft ferrying tourists seeking a brief taste of Alaska wilderness. Souvenir shops selling little that’s authentically Alaskan, alongside jewellery stores offering Tasmanite and pendants for couples celebrating milestones, will shutter. Themed pubs, aspiring to evoke a bygone era, will close for the season.

Hart, a former tourism business owner turned activist, is at the centre of a political fight that has divided the community. She spearheaded Proposition 2, a ballot initiative aimed at banning cruise ships on Saturdays and 4 July. In October, it was defeated by a margin of about 60/40, with approximately 10,000 people voting, more than in the mayoral election, which took place at the same time. “We’ve become an amusement park,” Hart says. “The soul of Juneau is being sold off piece by piece.”

Residents cherish their access to Alaska’s vast wilderness – its forests, mountains, waters and glaciers. They value the security and sense of community that defines small-town life in America. But Juneau’s identity has fundamentally changed with the rise of an industry that monetises experiences local people take for granted. Hiking, whale watching, fishing and kayaking – everyday activities for Juneauites – are packaged and sold at premium prices aboard the cruise ships.

“It is a once-in-a-lifetime trip,” says Pat Farrell, who is in Juneau with his wife, Freda. The semi-retired couple from Dublin are passengers on the Celebrity Solstice and are on a typical seven-night Alaska itinerary. After a day of excursions, they return to the ship, where meals and drinks are already paid for.

They take a few minutes to break away from the stream of passengers descending the terminal and crossing the ship’s gangway. Nearly 320 metres long and 19 decks high, the Celebrity Solstice is fully lit, shimmering in the late Alaskan summer evening. It’s hard to argue that these giant ships aren’t an engineering marvel.

“I wanted to see the glaciers before they melt,” says Freda. Pat adds: “We’ve seen things we never would have, like glaciers and whales. It’s just beautiful.” Though conscious of the environmental impact of their cruise, they wanted to see these places before it was too late.

The Farrells have noticed banners and storefront display stickers promoting cruise ship tourism but they are also aware of community divisions. “I see that some of these towns depend on the cruise ships,” Freda says. The ease of travel made the cruise an attractive option though. “Everything is well-organised, and the service is top-notch. It’s hard to resist the temptation. It’s the adventure of going to Alaska.” They tried to support local businesses. “We made it a point to shop at a store that says it’s Alaskan-owned, but I do wonder how the locals feel with so many of us here.”

As Elon Musk has embraced Donald Trump and various far-right conspiracy theories, he has left behind an aghast cohort of Tesla owners who suddenly feel embarrassed by their own cars. Many of them are now publicly displaying their dismay at Musk on their vehicles.

Sales of anti-Musk stickers have boomed since the world’s richest man declared his support for Trump and helped propel him to victory in the US presidential election, as owners of Teslas, the car brand headed by Musk, try to distance themselves from the South African-born multibillionaire.

“Sales have really spiked. The day after the election was the biggest day ever,” said Matt Hiller, a Hawaii-based aquarium worker who sells a range of stickers online that denounce Musk. “People saw a billionaire supervillain buy his way into the administration and it rubbed them the wrong way.”

Hiller started the sticker range last year after deciding against buying a Tesla due to Musk’s “amplifying of horrible people and silencing of others” on X, formerly Twitter, another of his companies. Several hundred stickers a day are now being sold, primarily to Tesla owners, Hiller said, bearing texts such as “Anti Elon Tesla Club” or “I Bought This Before Elon Went Crazy”, or a picture of Musk in clown makeup with the words “Space Clown”.

“People keep telling me that they feel they can drive their Teslas again with these stickers,” said Hiller, who has had to set aside part of his house to accommodate the growing operation. Hiller devises slogans such as “Elon Ate My Cat”, a reference to a debunked falsehood about migrants eating pets in Ohio, that are then sold on Etsy and Amazon. “People are shaken up. It’s a relief really to see they are awake,” he said of the surging demand.

Musk, who has an estimated wealth of $314bn, was once considered an environmental hero and technology pioneer by many US liberals after turning Tesla into the most valuable car company in the world while warning that “climate change is the biggest threat that humanity faces this century, except for AI”.

But his reputation among electric vehicle-buying liberals curdled as he used X to trumpet far-right conspiracies, fulminated about the “woke mind virus” and enthusiastically promoted Trump, even appearing at the president-elect’s rallies and funding campaign operations for him in key battleground states.

Musk is now intimately involved in Trump’s incoming administration, heading a new “Department of Government Efficiency” that plans mass layoffs of US government workers. Some Tesla owners have been left horrified. “I thought Elon was progressing our country, but he’s turned out to be kind of an evil person. It’s scary for someone with that sort of money to be so close to a politician,” said Mika Houston, a gymnastics teacher in Las Vegas who has had a Tesla Model 3 for the past three years.

“I still love my car, but I think about whether I’m endorsing that sort of behavior when I drive it. I’m embarrassed driving this car around after the election, thinking about the man behind it,” said Houston, who has bought an “Anti Elon Tesla Club” magnet for her car and is mulling whether to sell it.

Pamela Perkins, a photographer who lives in the Tesla heartland of California’s Silicon Valley, has a Model Y but is among a group of friends who are all considering ditching their Teslas.

“I’m turning 80 in January so I thought I’d have a sporty car that I could race anyone when the light turns green,” Perkins said of her purchase. “There was a time I thought Elon Musk was a genius but he went bad very quickly. I remember saying to my husband I should sell this car and send a message, for my own conscience.

“A lot of people have asked if I’m going to sell the car, I have a friend who was about to get a Tesla but decided not to because of him. But [Musk] doesn’t care about us, he has bigger fish to fry. He wants to colonize Mars.”

It’s unclear whether this backlash against Musk will hurt Tesla, which remains the dominant electric car company in the US. Sales have struggled somewhat this year, with a 7% drop forecast in the latest quarter compared with the same period in 2023, although analysts put this down to increased competition from other car makers and a stale Tesla lineup that has little changed apart from the much-hyped Cybertruck.

“Tesla isn’t the only player in town now and they haven’t been aggressive in putting new products out,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive.

“Elon is Tesla: his persona definitely has an impact upon the perception of the brand, and he has been polarizing. I don’t think we’ve seen any impacts in sales because of this – yet. I do think this will happen, but it remains to be seen which consumers he attracts and which he loses.”

Another uncertainty is how Tesla will be affected by policies pursued by Trump. The incoming president has called the shift to electric cars “lunacy”, said that supporters of such vehicles should “rot in hell” and vowed to strip away incentives to purchase them. Trump has somewhat tempered his invective against electric vehicles following Musk’s endorsement but is still planning to remove a key tax credit for new buyers.

For now, though, there is a windfall for those selling anti-Musk merchandise. “I feel like people really wanted to make their voices heard in some way, even as passive as it is,” said Stacey Davis, who started selling Musk bumper stickers a year ago. Davis, who has a Tesla, said she has had an 800% increase in sales of these bumper stickers on Etsy since the election.

“Elon started not aligning with what I believe in and he just started being really weird, extra,” said Davis. “At first we’re like, OK, he’s just one of those eccentric types of people. But then when he went into his political stuff and I was like, oh no, this is not it.”

With a Trump presidency looming over the US for the next four years, Musk’s involvement is a bittersweet prospect for some sellers. “I’d be happy for him to disappear from public discourse and just be another rich guy,” Hiller said. “If I never sell another Elon sticker that’s fine. I’d rather him just be gone for the country’s sake and I can go back to making stickers of fish.”

Once again, the Young Country Diary series is open for submissions! Every three months, as the UK enters a new season, we ask you to send us an article written by a child aged 8-14.

The article needs to be about a recent encounter they’ve had with nature – whether it’s a majestic deer, a busy rock pool or a yomp in the woods.

Crucially, it doesn’t matter if the child is a nature expert or has never picked up a pair of binoculars. We are especially keen to reach teachers who might like to get their class outside and noticing nature.

You can submit your piece any time between now and noon on Friday 3 January.

Six winning entries will be chosen. These will be published in the Guardian newspaper and online – two in December, two in January and a final two in February. Then on 28 February the form will reopen again below, for articles about early spring.

Note that if you send your piece in early enough, you stand a chance of being published on 28 December.

How your child can take part

First of all, we’re looking for children age 8 to 14, so we will need your permission, as parent or guardian. Then here’s what the child needs to do:

Step 1 – Go out one day to where there is some nature. It could be their local woods or beach, their garden, a farm, or simply the nearest park.

Step 2 – Write an article of 200-250 words telling us what they saw and what happened.

Step 3 – Send the article to us using the form below. We ask that you fill in the form yourself rather than the child.

Photos/drawings – These are helpful (especially landscape rather than portrait) but they are not a condition of entry. If you have some, please tell us in the “more information” field, as there’s no way to attach them to the form.

Hints and tips for any budding YCD writers

If the child gets stuck and doesn’t know what to write about, here are a few pointers:

Good nature writing starts with the senses – so what did you see and hear? What about smell and touch? Take notes when you’re out and about so you don’t forget

How would you describe what happened? Did it remind you of anything?

It’s great to look up some extra information about what you saw, and tell us about that too. For example, if you find an interesting-looking bug, see if you can find out what type of butterfly it was, how long they live – any juicy titbits!

You can think big, and describe the whole scene – the sky, the horizon, the landscape. Or you can think small, and tell us some details about the butterfly’s wings or the beetle’s markings.

What did your encounter with nature make you think about? How did it make you feel?

The deadline for entry is noon on Friday 3 January. Anyone can enter their child who is aged between 8 and 14 and based in the UK. You the parent/guardian will be contacted if your child’s piece is selected for publication, and you will be paid on behalf of the child.

For further inspiration, here are a few recent Young Country Diaries:
Zahrah, 13, on ‘goblin’s gold’
Amaya, 10, on saving jellyfish
Noah, 9, on seeing a black squirrel near his school

Good luck, everyone!

Paul Fleckney, editor of Young Country Diary and Country Diary

We ask that the parent/guardian fills in the form below, rather than your child. Your responses are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. One of our journalists will be in contact with you, as parent or guardian, before we publish, so please do leave contact details.

This week, world leaders are gathering in Busan, South Korea, to hammer out a global plastics treaty to try to curb pollution from one of the most dangerous materials on the planet. While such a high-level event might seem far removed from our everyday lives, it is the products we use every day that are at the heart of the negotiations. Some plastics are worse than others and have a unique impact in various parts of the world. Here, we look at five of the worst offenders.

Plastic sachets, Indonesia

The sachet was popularised across Asia primarily by Unilever in the 1980s as a way to sell food and hygiene products in smaller, more affordable quantities. But in Indonesia, they replaced existing bulk-buy, reuse and refill systems. The result is that 5.5m sachets are now sold every day just for detergent in the country, whose citizens each produce 4kg of sachet waste a year, according to the nonprofit Plastic Diet movement.

The problem is that the sachets’ multilayered construction – of plastic and metal – makes them virtually impossible to recycle. Overwhelmed waste management systems leak sachets into the environment, where they clog drains and contribute to floods. Some are burned as cooking fuel, which emit toxic chemicals that enter air and food.

“The distribution is massive. We find them in even remote islands in Indonesia,” says Zakiyus Shadicky, senior research lead at Plastic Diet Indonesia.

Unilever said that tackling plastic sachet waste is a priority for the company, and that it has so far installed more than 1,000 refill stations across Indonesia, saving an estimated six tonnes of plastic.

Polyester clothing, Ghana and Kenya

We typically don’t think of discarded clothes as plastic pollution. But between 60% and 70% of textiles are manufactured from synthetic fibres such as polyester. This becomes a problem when it ends up in unmanaged landfills in places including Ghana and Kenya. These countries accept secondhand and deadstock clothing traded by the EU and UK. But an investigation by the Changing Markets Foundation revealed that in Kenya, up to half of these garments are discarded, often because they are too damaged to wear.

Dumped in open landfills, the clothes gradually disintegrate and pollute surrounding soils and rivers. “The trade of this used clothing from the global north to the global south is, to a large extent, the export of plastic waste,” says Urška Trunk, senior campaign manager at the Changing Markets Foundation.

Globally, less than 1% of textile fibres are recycled, so Trunk is concerned about the increasing use of synthetic fibres, particularly by the 50 brands identified in its report. One of those was Shein, beloved by teenagers but, according to the Changing Markets Foundation, with the highest ratio of synthetic to natural fibres of the 50 fast fashion brands surveyed: four-fifths of its material output is made from fossil fuel-based textiles. “Plastic fashion is a problem, and it should be dealt with at the source,” says Trunk.

Shein responded saying that “we are committed to continuously improving our sustainability practices”, and added that it is working on sourcing lower-impact fibres, using surplus materials from other brands, and transitioning to 31% recycled polyester in its Shein-branded products.

Drinks bottles, Caribbean islands

Every year in Ocean Conservancy’s international coastal cleanup (ICC) one type of litter consistently appears in the top five most-collected items: plastic drinks bottles. In the Caribbean especially, an estimated 2,000 plastic items litter each kilometre, one-fifth of which are bottles. Data from the ICC shows that in 2022 and 2023 alone, volunteers in Trinidad and Tobago collected 86,410 plastic bottles – almost half of all plastic waste collected there.

Consumption patterns, paired with a shift from refillable glass bottles to single-use containers in the 1980s, might explain the scale of this pollution in the Caribbean. Plenty of plastic also washes up from other locations on to Caribbean shores. But there is also the role of increasing production by companies such as Coca-Cola, which sells more than 100bn plastic drinks bottles a year. A study based on 1,576 brand audits in 84 countries found that 11% of total branded plastic waste originated from Coca-Cola, more than any other company.

Coca-Cola responded, saying that in several Caribbean countries they “are working on efforts to increase recycling rates with ongoing projects”.

Tetra Pak, Vietnam

In lives increasingly cluttered by plastic, there is a feelgood factor to rinsing out those folded cardboard containers that hold milk, pasta sauces and soups, and placing them in the recycling bin. Most of these packages are made by the multinational food packaging company, Tetra Pak. But their neat cardboard exteriors conceal a more complex truth: layers of paper, metal and plastic lie nestled within. Multi-material products can be incredibly challenging to process and global recycling rates of Tetra Pak hover at about 25%.

Yet the company has claimed that its packages are “simple” to recycle. In 2018, the Guardian conducted an investigation in Vietnam that showed recycling systems ill-equipped to process the complex material, paired with limited waste management. This created a scenario where Tetra Paks littered the country’s beaches or were being incinerated. A Tetra Pak spokesperson responded, saying that its packages “can and are being recycled where collection, sorting, and recycling infrastructure exists at scale”. The company added that in Vietnam it is working to meet a 15% government-mandated carton recycling target, and that since 2018 it has invested in local mills to increase their recycling capacity.

Wet wipes, UK

Each year, the UK disposes of 11bn wet wipes, but this ubiquitous symbol of personal cleanliness has a polluting underside. Many wipes are manufactured with synthetic fibres such as polyester, which take years to disintegrate. When wipes are flushed, they accumulate in sewers, gathering fat and congealing with other waste to form gigantic, pipe-blocking “fatbergs” – such as the 35-tonne monster that was pumped out of London pipes in May. Last year, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) cleared 21,000 wet wipes from beaches across the UK and Channel Islands.

In 2024, the UK government passed legislation banning plastic-infused wet wipes, giving manufacturers 18 months to adapt their products. “We need to see this implemented as soon as possible to reduce the amount of plastic blocking up our pipes,” says Catherine Gemmell, policy and advocacy manager at the MCS.

Many manufacturers have switched to plastic-free materials in light of the legislation. However, the UK will continue to allow the manufacture of plastic wipes in the UK, which will then be exported to countries with looser regulations. That’s a good illustration of why global controls are needed, says Anja Brandon, director of plastics policy at Ocean Conservancy. “That’s where the [global plastics] treaty has potential value, in bringing in harmonised rules for everyone, so everyone has the same set of products that we’re restricting or prohibiting.”

More than 350 elephants that died in mysterious circumstances probably drank toxic water, according to a new paper that warns of an “alarming trend” in climate-induced poisoning.

The deaths in Botswana’s Okavango delta were described by scientists as a “conservation disaster”. Elephants of all ages were seen walking in circles before collapsing and dying. Carcasses were first spotted in north-eastern Botswana in May and June 2020, with many theories circulating about the cause of death, including cyanide poisoning or an unknown disease.

The incident was the largest documented elephant die-off where the cause was unknown, according to the lead researcher Davide Lomeo, a geography PhD student at King’s College London. “This is why it sparked so much concern,” he said.

Now, a new paper published in the journal Science of the Total Environment suggests the elephants were poisoned by water that contained toxic blooms of blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria. The climate crisis is increasing the intensity and severity of harmful algal blooms.

Researchers used satellite data to analyse the distribution of the carcasses relative to watering holes (there was no direct testing of samples because none were available). The team believes that the elephants generally walked just over 100km (62 miles) from the waterholes and died within 88 hours of drinking. In total they examined 3,000 waterholes, and found those that experienced increased cyanobacteria blooms in 2020 had high concentrations of carcasses. “They have no choice but to drink from them,” said Lomeo. It is possible other animals died from drinking from the waterholes, but bodies may not have been spotted from aerial surveys, and smaller carcasses could have already been taken by predators.

Researchers stated: “Globally, this event underscores the alarming trend of sudden, climate-induced diseases.” In the same year 35 elephants died in neighbouring Zimbabwe from an obscure bacteria getting into the blood, which was linked to prolonged drought conditions. In 2015, 200,000 saiga antelope died from a climate-linked outbreak of blood poisoning called haemorrhagic septicaemia in Kazakhstan. Mass-mortality events are becoming more common as the world heats up, and can push species toward extinction, experts warn.

In southern Africa, 2019 was the driest year in decades, followed by an extremely wet year in 2020. These conditions led to more sediment and nutrients being suspended in the water, which led to unprecedented algal growth. As the climate changes, much of the world is projected to become drier and hotter, with intermittent heavy rain. “It is very sad that so many elephants died but also this hints at this global trend of sudden, climate-induced disease … there is compelling evidence that this could happen again to any animal,” said Lomeo.

Dr Niall McCann, who was not involved in the research, and is the director of conservation at UK-based charity National Park Rescue, said: “This study provides a compelling explanation for the mass die-off of elephants that shocked the world in 2020.” The research “adds to the growing body of evidence that climate change can have a range of lethal effects on wildlife (as well as livestock and people), from radically changing water availability, to providing the conditions for harmful bacteria and algae to proliferate and overwhelm animal populations”.

Dr Arnoud van Vliet from the University of Surrey, who was also not involved in the paper, said it gave “support to the previously established view that cyanotoxins in drinking water may have caused the mass deaths”.

Researchers said the study underscored the need for water quality surveillance. Van Vliet agreed. “With the predictions that the southern African region will become drier and hotter, this may again create the conditions described … it is important to take preventive action where possible,” he said.

The study was carried out in collaboration with researchers from the University of Botswana, the Natural History Museum, London, Queen’s University Belfast, and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory.

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