The chicken liver sponge has sailed through a test of its ability to filter pollutants in a harbour in Spain’s Costa Brava

In the polluted waters of Marina Palamós on Spain’s Costa Brava, Manuel Maldonado, a sponge biologist, noticed something unusual last month: red starfish had started settling in the area.

Nearly two years earlier, the Spanish National Research Council scientist and his colleagues had begun transplanting sea sponges into the port to study whether they could survive in its polluted waters.

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© Photograph: Carlota Escarré

© Photograph: Carlota Escarré

© Photograph: Carlota Escarré

Exclusive: 7,280 suspected illegal spills in rivers and sea recorded in first five months of 2026

The number of suspected illegal discharges of raw sewage into rivers and seas by water companies during dry weather increased significantly during the first five months of 2026.

Dumping raw sewage into waterways during dry spells via overflows amounts to pollution. It is considered a breach of the permits given to water companies and is illegal. Discharging during dry weather increases the toxicity of the sewage pollution entering waterways. Rivers have less flow and volume, and there is no rainwater to dilute the sewage pollution entering the waterway.

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© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Report calls for legally binding targets to cut microplastic pollution as soil ‘is a complex living ecosystem’

The accumulation of microplastics in soil presents an emerging threat to the UK’s food security, according to scientists, MPs and campaigners who have called for legally binding targets to cut microplastic pollution.

UK agricultural soils have been identified as among the most contaminated by microplastics in Europe, often as a result of repeated applications of sludge from water treatment works as fertiliser, according to a report published by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on microplastics.

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© Photograph: pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto

© Photograph: pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto

© Photograph: pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Amid a backlash, Gov. Josh Shapiro is pumping the brakes on enormous data centers. But in a region scarred by the collapse of the steel industry, some welcome billions in construction.

© Kristian Thacker for The New York Times

Amid a backlash, Gov. Josh Shapiro is pumping the brakes on enormous data centers. But in a region scarred by the collapse of the steel industry, some welcome billions in construction.

© Kristian Thacker for The New York Times

Scientists say system to treat contaminated wastewater offers a model for ensuring food security in a fast-warming climate

All it took to turn the murky, heavily polluted waters of South Africa’s Stiebeuel River into a resource clean enough for irrigating a community’s vegetable plots was a collection of stones, heat-treated wood and sand.

Without chemicals and using renewable energy, researchers from the University of Cape Town are cleaning 36,000 litres of water, polluted by sewage, chemicals, and traces of drugs and medication, every day to make it usable for growing food in a fast-expanding informal settlement along the course of the river.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Water Hub

© Photograph: Courtesy of Water Hub

© Photograph: Courtesy of Water Hub

Elon Musk says a secretive new SpaceX foundry will let him cast his own turbine blades and get gas power online 18 months faster than anyone else — but it's a bet on a fuel source that's already triggering lawsuits and health studies everywhere his (and others') turbines have gone in.

Checking for sewage spills has become as normal as checking the weather forecast, say swimmers on East Sussex beaches

• South West Water has worst environmental record in England, analysis shows

“I’m furious,” says Jo Armstrong, 75, sitting on Brighton beach with her daughter and granddaughter.

Armstrong lives in Lewes, a town 8 miles from Brighton, and usually goes swimming in nearby Seaford in East Sussex every day. But over the past week the water there has been too polluted to swim. “Brighton beach was the only place that stayed clean,” she says.

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© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Exclusive: Friends of the Earth finds greatest sewage discharge in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset

• ‘Tiny bit of rain and the sewage comes’: Brighton swimmers vent fury at sea pollution

South West Water is doing more harm to the environment than any other water company in England, according to new analysis, with more sewage discharged in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset than anywhere else.

Friends of the Earth analysed water companies’ environmental performance in six categories: sewage spills, water quality at bathing sites, pollution incidents or warnings at bathing sites, severity of sewage pollution at bathing sites, the percentage of rivers rated below the standard for good ecological health, and the affordability of bills.

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© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

Checking for sewage spills has become as normal as checking the weather forecast, say swimmers on East Sussex beaches

• South West Water has worst environmental record in England, analysis shows

“I’m furious,” says Jo Armstrong, 75, sitting on Brighton beach with her daughter and granddaughter.

Armstrong lives in Lewes, a town 8 miles from Brighton, and usually goes swimming in nearby Seaford in East Sussex every day. But over the past week the water there has been too polluted to swim. “Brighton beach was the only place that stayed clean,” she says.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Exclusive: Friends of the Earth finds greatest sewage discharge in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset

• ‘Tiny bit of rain and the sewage comes’: Brighton swimmers vent fury at sea pollution

South West Water is doing more harm to the environment than any other water company in England, according to new analysis, with more sewage discharged in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset than anywhere else.

Friends of the Earth analysed water companies’ environmental performance in six categories: sewage spills, water quality at bathing sites, pollution incidents or warnings at bathing sites, severity of sewage pollution at bathing sites, the percentage of rivers rated below the standard for good ecological health, and the affordability of bills.

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© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

Whitley Bay, North Tyneside: A huge community effort is under way to clear up a spill of these disastrously resilient beads. We take a family trip to the beach to do our bit

My son spots the first one. It’s about the size of a lentil, and half-buried in the dry sand.

We’re on the beach at the seaside town of Whitley Bay. We’ve just walked past a clean-up crew of about 40 volunteers in hi-vis clothing and rubber gloves, kneeling or stooped over black buckets. This is the aftermath of the Tyne nurdle spill, which sounds much funnier than it is.

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© Photograph: Alistair Leadbetter

© Photograph: Alistair Leadbetter

© Photograph: Alistair Leadbetter