Environment

Next week the UN intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC) on plastic pollution will meet in Uruguay to develop an international legally binding instrument against plastic pollution. There is concern among scientists that the negotiations will overlook the diversity and complexity of chemicals present in plastics. This would severely undermine the treaty’s effectiveness, according to a new study published in the recent issue of the scientific journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

The sweet chestnut and the walnut are an economically important tree species in Europe. It is thanks to the ancient Romans that we find their fruits and wood so widespread today. Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL and the University of Bern have retraced the history of their distribution based on pollen and archaeological evidence.

Terrestrial and aquatic food webs respond differently to changes in the environment. Understanding these differences is fundamental to identifying the species most important to an ecosystem and to effectively protecting biodiversity. This is shown by a study led by the research institutes Eawag and WSL and published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers at ETH Zurich and Eawag have developed an approach to accurately record and fully track the biodegradation of plastics in soils.