Waste To Wealth: Plastic often recycled into pillows, mattresses

But a series of new laws in effect since January 2020 aim to significantly reduce plastic pollution over five years by phasing out single-use plastic, encouraging research and development of plastic alternatives and improving waste management and recycling.

Five hospitals in the United Kingdom have installed new machines from a Cardiff-based company which melts items made of polypropylene, such as face masks, separating out impurities to make plastic blocks recycled into chairs, buckets or 3D-printed items.

Nina Gomes is no average environmentalist. With bright pink goggles and just 4 years old, she picks trash with her father from the water along the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. With Nina in tow, Gomes sets out on a paddleboard into the picturesque but polluted waters of Rio's Guanabara Bay, where she grabs plastic bottles and bags and puts them in a mesh net.

Thousands of tons of refuse are being cleared from Germany's flood-hit regions. Removing unprecedented mountains of belongings is a challenge, but it is also helping residents begin to move forward.

A distillery in the Highlands of Scotland is using waste from its whisky production process to create biofuel for trucks. Managers at the distillery say the fuel has the potential to save about 250 tons of carbon emissions for trucks on the road.

Facilities to encourage visitors to avoid the use of single use plastics are installed by several NGOs and the municipality at the Ayia Triada beach in Paralimni. The beach is now equipped with a water station for cold, filtered and free water. It includes an area for smokers and signs with information on how the visitors can become part of the solution, not the problem are also found at selected points.

As Ivorian artist Aristide Kouame combs the beach dragging a trash bag of waterlogged flip-flops, he is aware other beachgoers in the commercial capital Abidjan think he is a desperate trader or a madman.

To date, the Taliban have profited from the opium and heroin trade. Now the militant group effectively rules a country with valuable resources that China needs to grow its economy.

The castle of the counts of Perche stands on a hill overlooking the French town of Nogent-le-Rotrou, in the central Eure-et-Loir department. This thousand-year-old fortress, testament to a wealth of local history, is now a museum. Through nearly 400 objects, it takes visitors on a journey through time, from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. FRANCE 24 takes you on a tour.

Volunteers from Lima’s soup kitchens are calling on supermarkets to allow them to collect any excess food, to feed the rising number of families relying on their services to survive. In Peru, poverty has risen over the course of the pandemic to affect almost a third of the population.

Norway's two-day election began Sunday, with many voters concerned about how the oil-rich nation can give up its addiction to fossil fuels. For some, being the world's fastest adopter of electric vehicles isn't enough.

Norway's two-day election began Sunday, with many voters concerned about how the oil-rich nation can give up its addiction to fossil fuels. For some, being the world's fastest adopter of electric vehicles isn't enough.