It wasn’t all bad

The amount of litter on Britain’s beaches has almost halved over the past three years, according to the Marine Conservation Society. Its latest study found that there are now 425 pieces of litter per 100 metres of beach, down from 718 in 2017. The researchers credit volunteer beach clean-ups and the introduction of the 5p plastic bag charge for the change, as well as David Attenborough’s Blue Planet series for drawing public attention to the blight of plastic pollution in the sea.

Conservationists are celebrating the “incredible” return of wildlife to Kangaroo Island – one of the areas worst affected by Australia’s wildfires in January. Only an estimated 10,000 of the 50,000 koalas on the island survived the devastating blaze, raising fears for the population’s future. But thanks to the efforts of volunteer carers, vets, soldiers and tree surgeons (who climbed up trees to rescue injured and traumatised animals), many koalas have been rehabilitated, and are now being released back into the wild to join recovering populations of other rare species. So far, they have a survival rate of 40% – far higher than the 12% predicted for them.

A website that brings together independent bookshops and gives consumers an alternative to Amazon has launched in the UK. The site – bookshop.org – is already running in the US and has so far raised £5.7m for independent booksellers there. Founded by writer Andy Hunter, the site passes all the profits from a sale (30% of the cover price) to the bookshop if people buy the book while browsing through their selection. If a customer searches for a specific title, as they would on Amazon, profits are shared between all the participating stores.