Positive News Autumn 2025

I Forecast Good News Coming Your Way!

I don't know about you but the constant drip of bad news can be quite a Debbie Downer. So perk yaself up with some feel good stories..

1. Recycle Microfibres in your Wash

Microfibres can be found in all sorts of places including washed up in beaches from discarded waste, or even from simply washing our clothes. A start up company in Cornwall have designed a new filter to catch microfibres - they can be sent in for recycling to help make construction or packaging materials.

https://www.positive.news/society/good-news-stories-from-week-25-of-2025/

Check out our post on ‘The Story of Microfibres’ by Lovelier Planet.

2. A Tidal Energy Milestone

Scotland is one of the world leaders in tidal energy – not reliant on sun or wind but making energy from strong tidal currents. The MeyGen site off the Scottish coast are delighted that their turbines have exceeded six years in sea water without needing any maintenance.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/07/08/turbine-in-scotland-hits-very-significant-milestone-in-a-breakthrough-for-tidal-energy

Check out our ‘Eco News in Scotland’ post for some more great achievements!


3. Conservation Bringing Back Species across The UK

A Species Recovery Programme funded £13m from 2023 to 2025 which supported over 150 species according to Natural England. The project include building tunnels for Adders to safely navigate roads, to supporting rare species such as water voles, oyster catchers & orchids.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/c5ypkx206r4o

Check out these other feel good stories on the benefits of supporting nature:

Water Voles Returning to England: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/c5yd3zdlw46o

Golden Eagle Chick Born in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2pxwl09w3o

Beavers Help Water Voles Survive: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/c0ddyl83jjro

Other Positive News for Wildlife by Lovelier Planet:
https://www.lovelierplanet.com/2020/06/positive-news-for-wildlife.html


4. Peatland Recovery through Wet Farming!

The PaluWise Project EU will transform rewetted peatland into ‘wet farming’ which involves growing crops on wetlands without draining them.

The Great Fen across Cambridgeshire will join sites in Poland, Finland and the Netherlands to take part in the four-year pilot.

Quoted in Positive News ‘Besides locking up carbon in restored peat soil, it has the potential to create havens for wetland wildlife such as birds, voles and insects.’

https://www.positive.news/society/good-news-stories-from-week-26-of-2025/


5. Garbage Cafes – Food in Exchange for Plastic Waste

New garbage cafes are popping up in India. Volunteers are rewarded with food in exchange for plastic waste that is brought in. 

The plastic waste is cleaned up from the streets by volunteers & sent off to be recycled, helping to clean the streets & fill hungry tums at the same time. Bravo!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20250818-the-indian-garbage-cafes-giving-out-food-in-exchange-for-plastic-waste


6. Flexible Plastics Recycling in your Bin Collection

10 local authorities took part in trials in the UK to collect flexible (soft) plastics from households in their normal bin collection. 

Over 400 tonnes of flexible plastic packaging was collected from 160,000 households during the trials – equivalent to more than 50 million bread bags.

The UK government is hoping to introduce this country wide by 2027.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-flexible-plastic-recycling-trials-172025421.html


7. Recycling Fishing Nets through Ocean Recovery Project

Tidy Britian via the Ocean Recovery Project have rescued & recycled fishing nets & body boards from UK beaches. Did you know that fishing nets contain plastics which can be washed, ground up into pellets & re-used for another purpose?

https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/uk-fishing-net-recycling /

To discourage beach goers from buying body boards (shipped over from China en masse) & discarding them onto British beaches, a new scheme to hire a board for £1 was introduced to beaches across the South West which has helped cut down waste at an affordable price.

https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/news/keep-britain-tidy-fights-back-against-polluting-bodyboard-wave-waste

8. NHS Plants 1 Million Trees via Ecosia

The NHS have pledged to use the online search engine Ecosia for web searches to help fund tree planting across the world. In return, Ecosia donated trees to be planted around NHS Trusts. Imperial College NHS Trust helped plant over 229,000 trees thanks to more than 11 million searches made by staff.

https://www.essexmagazine.co.uk/2025/09/nhs-staff-help-plant-1-million-trees-through-ecosia-partnership/


9. More than 10 Million Trees Planted in Northern Forest

In our Save The Trees article in 2019 we spoke of the Woodland Trusts plan to plant 50 million trees in a Northern Forest (an area spreading across from Liverpool to Hull). In July 2025 a milestone has been reached of 10 million trees planted to date.

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/press-centre/2025/07/more-than-10-million-trees-planted-across-the-northern-forest/


10. Halloween Clothes Swap in Devon

For families living in Devon, local libraries are hosting Halloween costume swaps for children to bring their old costume & choose something new. This helps to reduce waste & is great for growing kids, as they step into something new. Ghoulishly good idea!

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/families-devon-urged-join-library-040000407.html

Some Extra Goodies for You

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How to build an ARK (Acts of Restorative Kindness):

https://wearetheark.org/

New life for old plastic – how plastics are recycled: https://britishrecycledplastic.co.uk/about-us/plastic-recycling-process/

Re-used paint network (donate unused paint to a worthy cause):

https://communityrepaint.org.uk/the-uks-paint-reuse-network/

Ideas for Recycling Old Tyres:

https://www.boredpanda.com/recycling-tires-upcycling-diy-ideas/

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Check out more of our Positive News to keep you in the mood

All Things Christmas!

Check out our Home Made Products too

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Have a Great Autumn

Good News for 2025

Welcome to our good news blog to keep you in high spirits!

1) UK’s electricity cleanest ever in 2024

Fossil fuels made up 29% of the UK’s electricity in 2024 – the lowest level on record. A Carbon Brief report showed renewable sources more than doubled from 65TWh in 2014 to 143TWh in 2024 (+122%).

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-electricity-was-cleanest-ever-in-2024/

2) Bumblebee populations increase 116 times in Scotland

Surveys of bumblebees in a 90 acre site near Perth, recorded around 50 bees in 2021. By 2023, after the site was rewilded, bumblebee numbers had topped 4000, with the number of different bee species doubling.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/bumblebees-increase-by-more-than-100x-in-remarkable-scotland-rewilding-project-from-35-bees-to-over-4000/

3) Bee corridor in Letchworth wins award

Letchworth was granted ‘Bee Friendly’ status from the Bee Friendly Trust in 2024. 

North Herts council planted more bee friendly shrubs on roundabouts, rewilded grass verges, put up more bee hotels, and made and gave away bee seed bombs.

The council allocated £10,000 to develop more bee corridors in North Herts, with Royston next on the list!

https://www.north-herts.gov.uk/news/award-winning-letchworth-bee-corridor-coming-royston

4) Funding in Hackney for bees

£250k worth of funding was allocated to create bee corridors around Hackney in 2024. Funded by the National Lottery Grant, the 3 year project aims to plant a green passageway with the help of local residents, to encourage bees and other wildlife.

https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2024/04/08/environmentalists-buzzing-250k-funding-bee-corridor-hackney/

See a bug-life video below about b-lines & how local corridors can help insects flourish: 

5) Community windfarm to fund a million trees in Hebrides

Trees are being planted in the Western Isles of Scotland in old abandoned crofts. The seeds, sourced by Hebridean Tree Ark, are harvested from local trees found clinging to cliffs as well as from uninhabited islands.

Four-fifths of the funding is from the £900,000 annual profits, made by three wind turbines owned by Point and Sandwick trust.

https://www.theenergymix.com/community-wind-farm-empowers-hebrides-reforestation-effort/

6) New rainforest in UK funded by Government Species Fund planted by drones

In a project led by the Woodland Trust, high-tech drones scattered 75,000 seeds across Bodmin in Cornwall.

The Woodland Trust hopes the new seeds will triple the area of temperate rainforest in Devon and Cornwall, to 24% of land area by 2050.

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/press-centre/2025/03/drone-sows-75000-native-tree-seeds-in-cornwall-and-devon/

Learn more about English rainforest conservation below:
https://www.positive.news/environment/restoring-britains-lost-rainforests/

7) 20 million trees will be planted a new Western Forest

In 2024, the West of England became the first region to publish a Local Nature Recovery Strategy. They’re aiming to create a new forest area of 2,500 hectares of woodland by 2030 - with a longer term plan to plant 20 million trees by 2050.

https://www.wenp.org.uk/priority-programmes/western-forest

8) Irish company giving a new life to wind turbines

Decommissioned wind turbines can be put to good use. Bladebridge (which is a spin off of Re-Wind) is giving new life to old blades, including parts of a bridge, bike stores & an e-hub. 

See more at: https://www.bladebridge.ie/

Another cool idea is a small house built inside one of the blades, developed by a Swedish company in the Netherlands https://www.positive.news/society/the-decommissioned-wind-turbine-that-became-a-tiny-home/

9) Prisoners help to recycle old fishing nets

A recycling scheme that collects & sorts fishing equipment has been renewed for another 3 years. Port of Jersey started the scheme in 2023 & 430 lobster pots, 66 tonnes of rope & 9000m of nets, had been collected through the scheme.

The project is run by the Jersey port; alongside the government, Jersey Fishermen's Association and the prison service.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwydjv94q22o

10) Green washing to be banned in the EU

The EU wants to make sure that all information on a product’s impact on the environment, longevity, repairability, composition, production and usage is backed up by verifiable sources.

MEPs approved the agreement in January 2024 - EU countries have 24 months to incorporate the update into their national law.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20240111STO16722/stopping-greenwashing-how-the-eu-regulates-green-claims

Can you spot green wash claims? Try this quiz by Greenpeace: 
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/spot-the-greenwashing-quiz/

Check out our post too on green washing: Green Wash and Wish Cycling

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⚘⚘ Reasons for climate hope in 2025 ⚘⚘

https://blog.ecosia.org/why-theres-reasons-for-climate-hope-in-2025/

  Ignore your lawn in May, to help pollinators thrive! 

https://www.plantlife.org.uk/campaigns/nomowmay/

 Did you know 4th–10th May 2025 is British Hedgehog Awareness Week 

https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/give-hedgehogs-the-edge-this-hedgehog-awareness-week/

https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/ is a great resource too!

Click here to see more good news - enjoy!

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