A new study finds that regional plastic bag bans in the U.S. significantly reduce coastal plastic bag litter compared with areas without such policies.

Single-use plastic bags are one of the most ubiquitous forms of plastic litter. They are rarely recycled and degrade quickly into microplastics that are often ingested by wildlife, leading to injury, stress and death.

To tackle the problem, many municipalities have turned to regulation. As of 2023, roughly one in three U.S. residents lived in an area with some type of plastic bag policy: Ten states  enacted laws to ban plastic bags or charge a fee to discourage their use, another two states enacted such policies in 2024. More than 90% of policies are at the local town level. Meanwhile, more than 100 countries have some type of ban or fee on thin plastic bags.

Despite the widespread adoption of plastic bag policies, there have been limited data on their effectiveness, until now. To fill this gap, study authors Anna Papp, an incoming postdoc at MIT, U.S.,  and Kimberly Oremus, an associate professor at the University of Delaware’s School of Marine Science and Policy, turned to crowd-sourced beach cleanup data collected between 2016 and 2023 by the nonprofit advocacy group Ocean Conservancy. Through its app called Clean Swell, which records trash picked up by volunteers, the NGO has collected long-term, standardized data from more than 226,000 locations globally.

“The volunteers, when they gather their litter, they count and categorize the items and enter that into the app,” Oremus told Mongabay in a video call.

The researchers then cross-referenced that information with municipal-level plastic bag regulations. They compared areas with outright bans on plastic bags versus those with bag fees. They also compared the size of the areas regulated, ranging from whole states to small towns. Areas with no plastic bag legislation served as controls.

The study found that although each area still had an increase in the number of plastic bags collected, areas with plastic bag policies showed a 25-47% decline in plastic bags as a share of total items collected during the study period, relative to those with no bag policies.

“It’s definitely less bad than without the policies,” Papp said.

The researchers found areas with an outright ban on plastic bags or fees for them were more effective than partial bans allowing thicker bags. They also found that large statewide bans were more effective than smaller ones.

Meanwhile, the study didn’t find any effect of the policies on other plastic items like straws and bottles, Oremus said, meaning the decline in plastic bags specifically was likely due to the bag policy and not another factor.

“This study is further proof that single-use plastic bans are effective,” Melissa Valliant, communications director with Beyond Plastics not part of the study, told Mongabay in an email.

Banner image: of a dolphin with a plastic bag by Jedimentat44 via Flickr (CC by 2.0).

RHONE GLACIER, Switzerland (AP) — One of Switzerland’s glaciologists says his teams are noticing a strange phenomenon in the Alpine country’s glaciers. Holes are emerging inside — a bit like Swiss cheese — seemingly caused by turbulence as water passes through the bottom of the glacier or air flows through the gaps that appear inside. The glaciers of Switzerland, which has the most of any country in continental Europe, are fading because of global warming. Their fragility became starkly apparent last month as a mudslide swallowed up the village of Blatten. Matthias Huss of the GLAMOS glacier monitoring group took The Associated Press to see one major glacier this month.

Reporting by Fanny Brodersen, Matthias Schrader and Jamey Keaten,  Associated Press

Banner image: Matthias Huss, of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and glacier monitoring group GLAMOS, stands at the Rhone Glacier near Goms, Switzerland, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on June 13, just six months after its U.S. subsidiary, Pilgrim’s Pride, made a $5 million donation to Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, the single largest contribution to the event.

The Brazil-founded company has sought a U.S. listing for more than a decade, and in its latest attempt faced a nearly two-year delay imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a federal agency responsible for regulating the stock market, amid pressure from civil society groups over the company’s history of corruption and its role in Amazon deforestation.

The NYSE listing is “a catastrophe for the planet,” Alex Wijeratna, senior director at the U.S.-based environmental nonprofit Mighty Earth, one of the main signatories of letters raising concerns to the SEC, said in a statement following the listing. “Giving JBS access to billions of dollars of new funding will serve to supercharge its climate-wrecking operations and war on nature.”

Today, JBS operates more than 250 meat facilities, with many located in the United States and Brazil. It supplies beef, poultry and pork to global food giants including McDonald’s, Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour.

Within two days of Trump appointee Paul Atkins assuming the role of SEC chair on April 21, JBS’ long-stalled bid for a U.S. listing was approved amid aggressive changes in the agency described as a “reckless game of regulatory Jenga.”

In a May 19 letter, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed JBS and Pilgrim’s Pride on whether the donation was meant to accrue political favor. “Your large donations … and the Trump Administration’s series of actions that benefit your companies, raise serious concerns about a potential quid-pro-quo arrangement,” Warren wrote in a May 19 letter.

In 2017, Joesley and Wesley Batista, the brothers behind JBS, confessed to bribing nearly 1,900 politicians in Brazil resulting in a 10.3 billion real ($1.9 billion) fine. In 2020, the brothers also agreed to pay a $27 million settlement in the U.S. for related anti-corruption charges.

More recently, an Environmental Investigation Agency report found JBS had bought cattle illegally raised on Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon. Earlier this year, the company was also linked to widespread destruction of jaguar habitat in the Pantanal biome of western Brazil.

JBS replied to Mongabay’s request for comment with an emailed statement from their subsidiary, Pilgrim’s Pride: “As a U.S.-based food company, Pilgrim’s was pleased to support the 2025 inauguration ceremony. We have a long bipartisan history of participating in the civic process and look forward to working with the Administration to create opportunities for American farmers and provide safe, affordable food for American families.”

The White House Press Office did not respond to Mongabay’s request for comment.

Banner image: Workers prep poultry at the meatpacking company JBS in the Brazilian state of Paraná. Image by Eraldo Peres/Associated Press.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Hundreds of firefighters backed up by aircraft were battling a wildfire burning out of control for the third day on the eastern Aegean island of Chios Tuesday, with authorities issuing multiple evacuation orders.

Towering walls of flames tore through forest and agricultural land on the island, where authorities have declared a state of emergency and have sent firefighting reinforcements from Athens, the northern city of Thessaloniki and the nearby island of Lesbos.

By Tuesday morning, the fire department said 444 firefighters with 85 vehicles were tackling the blaze on scattered fronts. Eleven helicopters and two water-dropping planes were providing air support.

Emergency services have issued evacuation orders for villages and settlements in the area since Sunday, when fires broke out near the island’s main town. The fire department has sent an arson investigation team to Chios to examine the cause of the blaze.

“We are faced with simultaneous fires in multiple, geographically unconnected parts of the island — a pattern that cannot be considered coincidental,” Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Giannis Kefalogiannis said Monday from Chios. Authorities, he said, were “very seriously examining the possibility of an organized criminal act, in other words arson.”

The minister said police forces on the island had been reinforced, while military patrols had been doubled.

“Whoever thinks that they can play with the lives of citizens and cause chaos with premeditated actions will be led to court,” Kefalogiannis said. “Arson is a serious crime and will be dealt with as such.”

Wildfires are frequent in Greece during its hot, dry summers. In 2018, a massive fire swept through the seaside town of Mati, east of Athens, trapping people in their homes and on roads as they tried to flee. More than 100 died, including some who drowned trying to swim away from the flames.

Banner image: Firefighters battle with a large wildfire burning in Kofinas, on the eastern Aegean island of Chios, Greece, late Sunday, June 22, 2025. (Pantelis Fykaris/Politischios.gr via AP)

The Moken, a nomadic seafaring people in Thailand, have for generations lived most of their days at sea, moving from one place to another, fishing and foraging. However, with protected areas and increasing tourism restricting their access to fishing, and fish populations declining, the Moken are no longer able to follow their traditional way of living. Instead, they’re being forced to settle on land and change how they live, according to a recent Mongabay video.

“The Moken now rely on others. We’re no longer self-sufficient like before,” tribe member Ngui tells Mongabay.

In Mu Koh Surin National Park, for example, with increasing restrictions on fishing, poor fish catch, and rising tourism, some Moken have turned to earning a living by collecting plastic trash instead of fish.

Ngui himself helped form the Moken Ocean Guardians in 2022, a community initiative that collects plastic bottles and other plastic waste floating in the sea or littered on the beaches and reefs around the Surin Islands. The plastic waste is then sent to Bangkok, where it’s recycled into usable products like yarn or pellets for manufacturing.

On the nearby coast of Koh Ra, fisher Q, part of the Moken Ocean Guardians, says the community has seen decreasing fish catches in the past 10 years, while trash in the sea continues to increase. With fishing becoming an unreliable source of sustenance, Q and his family have also shifted to collecting plastic bottles and trash on the beaches.

“If I had to choose between collecting bottles and fishing, I would definitely choose fishing because I want to live like a true Moken,” Q says.

But by collecting plastic waste, the “trash is reduced, and we earn money and the sea is cleaner,” Ngui says.

In the video, Q and his family are seen collecting two large bags full of plastic bottles one morning, which Q says would fetch them 200 baht ($6). “Without this project, we would be struggling and life would be much harder,” he says.

Through the Moken Ocean Guardians initiative, the Moken remove more than 10 metric tons of plastic from the Surin Islands per year.

Kang, a schoolteacher who is also Moken, laments how “tourism impacts the ecosystem more than people realize,” and that some tourists don’t think about the damage they might be causing.

The Moken struggle to maintain their traditional lifestyle, and also face discrimination, Kang says. So to do her bit, she teaches kids about environmental conservation and responsibility, and about Moken traditions. “Traditions unite the community and hold everyone together,” she says.

Watch the full video here.

Banner image of Ngui, founder of the Moken Ocean Guardians, diving. Image © Thomas Cristofoletti.

When Mongabay India first launched in 2018, the bureau initially reported exclusively in English. In late 2020, Mongabay began reporting in Hindi, one of India’s most widely spoken languages, particularly in the northern part of the country. Reflecting on the five years that have since passed, editors of Mongabay Hindi say in a recent article that the move has helped Mongabay connect with a large, mostly untapped readership eager for well-researched environmental stories, while also helping cultivate a deeper connection with communities less familiar with English.

Reporting on environmental issues in Hindi hasn’t been easy, write Shailesh Shrivastava, senior editor at Mongabay India and Mongabay Hindi, and Manish Chandra Mishra, assistant editor at Mongabay India. Through the years, Shrivastava and Mishra say, they have learned that a lot of globally used scientific and environmental concepts and definitions require thoughtfully crafted explanations in Hindi.

“To serve the present situation, we simplify the scientific language as much as possible, yet make sure we don’t trivialize the issue. Unlike English, here we need to explain most of the terms and also keep a tab on the amount of information so we don’t end up confusing the reader,” Shrivastava says.

Yet, finding suitable words for terms such as carbon footprint, loss and damage, and sequestration can be challenging. Direct translation into Hindi comes with the risk of either dramatizing or trivializing the concepts, Shrivastava adds. So, in such scenarios, the team retains the English terms, explaining them clearly the first time they appear in the story.

Reporting in Hindi has helped Mongabay reach audiences directly impacted by the issues or events.  For example, a 2024 Hindi story and video on Gond art — a traditional folk art which uses geometric patterns and nature-inspired motifs — reached audiences in regions where Gond art is prominently practiced.

“Local residents shared the story across Facebook and WhatsApp groups, helping it reach the very people the article focused on. This engagement showed how Hindi made the story more relatable and accessible, creating real readership within the community,” Mishra says.

“Many rural readers use voice search to find local news, which brings significant traffic to our content,” Mishra adds. “To engage these audiences, we also leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, as it has strong reach within local communities.”

Hindi narratives of locally relevant subjects like agriculture, nature-based solutions and water pollution, in fact, tend to outperform stories in English locally, Shrivastava says.

Mishra adds that there’s a growing community awareness and willingness to talk about local environmental issues on social media, and reporting in local languages creates a stronger connection with those audiences.

Read the full story on Mongabay India here.

Banner image: Artist Bhajju Shyam paints himself immersed in nature, playing the bana and singing traditional songs. Image by Manish Chandra Mishra/Mongabay India.