Growing food with the help of our repurposed excrement may not ring with gourmet promise, but in some places around the world, it is slowly becoming a thing — again.

It could almost be the scene of a picture postcard: old boats dotted around the French coastline, moving with the tide. But their environmental impact is a lot less charming. Most boats are made of fibreglass, plastics and resins, making them difficult to recycle. But is there another way? Can sustainable boating set sail? We take a closer look in this edition of Down to Earth.

2022 was a difficult year in many ways, but that didn't stop the biggest luxury labels securing impressive profits or coming up with exciting new collaborations, such as one between Jean Paul Gaultier and Olivier Rousteing. This past year was marked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a lack of raw materials and increased awareness of just how polluting the fashion industry is.

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.

South Korea is boosting efforts to recycle plastics in the country. At special centres, used PET bottles are recycled and transformed into products such as clothes, food containers, and cosmetic bottles.

Bringing solar power to remote villages in Mali. Millions of people in Mali have no access to electricity, but a start-up wants to change that by providing mini solar power plants to remote villages.

Three and a half billion people are confined in some way around the planet. That's almost half of the world's population. The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically changed our daily lives. With travel halted and industries slowed or stopped, what does that mean for the environment? What effect could it have on efforts to fight climate change? Down to Earth's team takes a look at carbon emissions, pollution, recycling and the impact on agriculture in this special episode in the midst of the coronavirus pandem

Andrew Forrest, chairman of the Minderoo Foundation, a philanthropic organisation, discusses his plans to shift plastics manufacturing to recycling rather than using petroleum. The initiative is called "Sea the Future." Forrest, the billionaire founder of Fortescue Metals Group Ltd., speaks with Shery Ahn and Paul Allen on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Australia."

In Philadelphia, recycling efforts go to waste

The level of threat plastic waste poses to man and nature is phenomenal. You may never ever want to improperly discard another piece of plastic after watching this short documentary on the scourge of plastic pollution in Nigeria.