Turning waste into money

As Japanese people prepare to head to the polls, economic concerns are back at the centre of public life.We explore how inflation, wages, demographics and geopolitics are shaping expectations, and whether the country can finally move beyond the "lost decades".To get in touch with ...  Show more

The Spanish government has announced plans to legalise the status of half a million undocumented migrants. Many arrive with student or tourist visas but overstay and start working on the black market. Migration is a polarising issue in western Europe, so why is Spain keen to hurr ...  Show more

Could recycling to save money be the answer to saving the planet? For decades, wealthy countries have been shipping their waste to China for sorting and recycling. Now China is getting wealthier, it no longer wants to be a dumping ground. So could we take another look at the cold ...  Show more

With plastic production set to double by 2050, immediate action is needed to address plastic waste pollution and the inefficiencies of existing recycling systems. Chemical recycling could help process lower-grade feedstocks, significantly upping the amount of plastic that can be ...  Show more

Picking up money - that’s what Haitian’s nicknamed a movement seeking to solve Haiti’s plastic waste problem and reduce poverty at the same time. It was started by a man who saw a glimmer of hope in the devastation wrought by the 2010 earthquake: plastic bottles were clogging the ...  Show more

Every single second, 20,000 single-use drinking bottles are sold around the world. That is more than a million pieces of non-biodegradable rubbish produced every minute. And as demand grows in developing economies, so will the mountains of waste, with much of it ending up in the ...  Show more