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

🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂

Have a Great Autumn

Beware of Hidden Plastics

The Hidden Danger of Plastics

All around us are plastics, we cannot fail to notice. But what we can’t see are tiny little microplastics which make their way into our food chain, water & even the air we breathe.

Even makeup and face washes contained micro beads which have been banned thankfully. Micro fibres during a clothes wash can also be a huge unseen problem. 

Below I have listed some of the sources of hidden plastics, some which may surprise you such as in tap water & car tyres. It does make for stark reading. 

It was watching hard hitting documentaries that triggered me to start this blog, so seeing the hard truths can help trigger positive change. 

I hope some of the items listed below will give you food for thought..

Sources of Hidden (Micro) Plastics.

Drinks – a study by Dr. Noam van der Hal found that cows milk contained 10 to 200 particles of microplastics per sample. When he went to the dairy & sampled the milk, he found far less particles within the dairy collection tank. Dr. Noam concluded that the bottling process itself leaches plastics into the product.

Another study looked at contamination of soft drinks, cold tea & energy drinks - it was found that microplastics were detected in 48 out of 57 samples. 

Tea Bags – folks didn’t realise that tea bags contained plastics until a gardener noted that tea bags in his compost heap refused to break down fully. This is caused by polypropylene being used to seal the bags, keeping in the tea without them coming apart during a hot dunking.

Following subsequent news reports, consumers began to put pressure on tea bag companies to change their products to become more eco friendly. I wrote an article on these hidden plastics in tea back in 2019.

Some companies have improved their products since my article above - maybe check out the website of your fave tea company, to check on how they’re doing to emit plastics from their products.

Tap Water – A study reported that 83% of tap water samples from major cities around the world contained plastic fibres. In the UK, 72% of samples were found to have micro fibres, whereas in the US, numbers were much higher at 94%.

Bottled Water - Research from State University of New York examined 250 bottles from nine worldwide countries & found plastics hiding ‘in bottle after bottle and brand after brand’. There were typically 10 plastic particles found, per litre of bottled water.

Chewing Gum – In ancient times the chewing gum was plant based, usually from sap, tree resins & bark that Native Americans, Early Europeans & Mayans/Aztecs used to chew on as a breath freshener.

Modern day chewing gums may contain plastics in their gum base as well as polyisobutylene, a type of rubber found in inner car tyres. This is why you see wads of gum sticking (quite literally!) around for years & years.

There are biodegradable alternatives available, see the link below for some ideas. https://www.treehugger.com/is-chewing-gum-biodegradable-5187955

Glitter – glitter can often contain plastic but some may not be aware. I found this article quite useful to learn a little more. https://moralfibres.co.uk/eco-friendly-alternatives-to-glitter/

Toiletries – Microbeads (small insoluble particles) have been used as exfoliators in cosmetics & toiletries. These are solid plastic particles less than 5mm. It was realised that these microbeads can run off into oceans & be ingested by fish & sea mammals causing potential harm to the environment & wildlife.

Cosmetics Europe recommended that by 2020 all products containing microbeads should be phased out. Many companies have been switching to alternatives such as tapioca, seaweed, silica & corn.

In 2018, the UK government placed a ban on products containing microbeads being sold in stores. These included toothpastes, shower gels, face scrubs & soaps.

The government website stated that 'just one shower alone was thought to send 100,000 microbeads down the drain and into the ocean, causing serious harm to marine life.'

Sadly there will be many beads out in the environment already swirling around in the seas & waterways, but at least action has been taken to prevent more being produced in the UK.

Clothes – fabrics can often be made up of polyester or acrylic. Washing of clothes releases thousands of microfibers into the waterways. These may not be picked up during filtration leading to contamination of tap water or be leached out into rivers & streams.

Prof Richard Thompson at Plymouth University found that on average, a 6kg wash load could release 140,000 fibres from a polyester-cotton mix or more than 700,000 fibres from acrylic. Dryers can also carry fibres into the air creating a source of airborne microplastic pollution.

Tyres – A report commissioned by Friends of the Earth found that vehicle tyres are the biggest cause of microplastic pollution in rivers, lakes & oceans in the UK. 

A recent study in Norway found that the average car tyre loses 4kg in its lifetime. 

Tyres contain about 20% natural rubber with the rest being made of synthetic materials containing plastic polymers. 

Another worrying ingredient is the use of carbon black - sourced from fossil fuels, it is used to blacken the tyres for resistence to UV light but is also reported to be non biodegradeable & possibly carcinogenic.

Fragments of plastic & synthetic rubber from tyres & brake pads can be kicked out onto the roads. Due to their tiny size they are easily picked up & carried by wind into streams, drains & rivers. The Norway study found particles can remain airborne for a whole month.

Nurdles – so what are nurdles I hear you ask! These are tiny plastic pellets that are often melted to make larger items. They are in effect the primary source of virgin plastic & transported by cargo to foreign countries still in its small pellet form.

Cargo spillages during bad storms can cause nurdles to be dumped out into the oceans. Due to their small size & light weight, they can often drift on top of the current & be carried out by tides to large expanses at sea, even as far as the arctic circle.

Fish & sea birds mistake them as food as they are similar in size to fish eggs. An accumulation of the microplastics can lodge in their guts, causing blockages & malnutrition.

Spillages can also occur during transfer by trucks to factories which can cause run off into drains & rivers, so the problem can be very widespread indeed.

This charity is looking for nurdle hunters to identify the full extent of the problem. Check out the site above for more information & if you can help, why not join the search for nurdles at your local beach.

Rainwater – Researchers studied rainwater & air samples in 11 protected areas in the Western USA over 14 months - they found that over 1,000 metric tons of microplastic fragments fell into these areas each year. 

This is the equivalent to over 120 million plastic water bottles (or 8 blue whales in weight). 

North Pole – Nanoplastics (smaller than a micrometre) have now been found as far away as the North & South poles. A chart about half way down this page shows they are so small they may even cross the blood-brain barrier.

Meanwhile, the top of Everest has been found to harbour microplastics – analysts found samples rife with thin, curly fibres of microplastic. Humans have quite literally left their mark in all sorts of places.

And who can forget the images of polar bears scavenging for food covered in plastic bags? Researchers in Alaska found a shocking 25% of polar bears had plastics lodged in their stomachs. 

Human Beings – A small study of 22 healthy volunteers in the Netherlands found traces of plastics in 17 of the blood samples taken. 

The most common plastic was polyethylene terephthalate (PET) usually found in drink bottles & fabrics, whilst the second most common was polystyrene used in takeaway food containers such as Styrofoam. The third was polyethylene used in paints, plastic wrap, sandwich bags & detergent bottles.

Here is another article on plastics affecting the human body – this is not meant to depress us, but is meant to open all our eyes to the problem we are all facing!
 

Did you know that humans have produced 18.2 trillion pounds of plastic since the 50s (equal in size to 1 billion elephants)? 

It’s hardly surprising that humans are ingesting & breathing in microplastics, but it is a concern that blood samples also contain plastic too. A stark reminder of how much damage we have done to ourselves & our planet.

We are resourceful beings & we need to come together to find solutions & act quickly – this planet is far too beautiful to waste.

Thank you for reading! 🌍

Check out our Positive News Stories to pick up the mood..

Microplastics in Your Wash

Why washing your Clothes could be adding to Plastic Pollution

As we are becoming more and more aware, plastic is finding its way into your home and garden in many ways. Not just what we see in packaging and plastic derived products, but also hidden in clothes, the air, rain water, salt and even food.

A recent BBC documentary showed lint collected from synthetic clothing (for example polyester, acrylic) after each wash was full of microfibres ,which are little plastic fragments that can be even tinier than the width of a human hair.

These minuscule fibres contain micro plastics which flush down our drains through a daily wash. They then make their way out into the sea, where marine life inadvertently takes them in as mistaken food. We are eating fish and crustaceans, ingesting some of the plastic ourselves.

Clouds can pick up fragments and rain plastics down on us. Even the arctic has not come away unscathed with snow being found to contain plastic particles.

Sea salt is being contaminated too plus a BBC program found plastic particles circulating in the air of households in the UK.  It's shocking stuff. 

Prof Richard Thompson, who studies marine micro plastics at Plymouth university, found that each UK washing load - 6kg (13lb) of fabric - could release: 

*140,000 fibres from polyester-cotton blend
*Nearly half a million fibres from polyester
*More than 700,000 fibres from acrylic

*https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40498292

Bio-plastics are a possible solution, for instance trees, fermented food waste, even pineapple could be used to make bio-plastics or vegan leather (see BBC link above for more details!)

The article above mentions though that alternatives like cotton, can be hard work for the environment too. Professor Blackburn from the University of Leeds states that, 'Growing 1kg of cotton consumes the amount of water you've drunk in your lifetime.'

So what can we do? 

Making Roots site has some useful tips on reducing plastic pollution from your clothes. I hope that microfibre catching wash bags will become more widely available, as at the moment they seem to be quite expensive.

There's an insightful video from Friends of the Earth plus useful tips on how to reduce microfibres being washed down the drains here at: 

https://friendsoftheearth.uk/plastics/microfibres-plastic-in-our-clothes.

Maybe check out this video too if you have a quick moment!