Environment

Nature and ecology groups supported by about 100 mayors have lost an urgent legal challenge to laws allowing farmers to spray weedkiller and pesticides close to homes in the French countryside.

The survival of some of nature’s most beautiful creatures is in your hands. Jane Hanks looks at how the drop in butterfly numbers can be reversed

Dordogne is to become the first department to charge all its households a separate bill for waste disposal.

Unwanted seashells reborn as frames for sunglasses

Waste not, want not is key to kitchen savings

Energy companies which claim to offer “green electricity” should be checked and receive a “premium” label if they are truly green, says Ademe, the state agency responsible for promoting eco-friendly living in France.

“Rubbish” is being given a second chance of life, thanks to a network of 157 Ressourceries spread throughout the country.

Don’t throw out your old possessions!

It will soon be possible for the owners of older petrol or diesel cars to have the engines taken out and replaced with electric motors and batteries.

Two friends, shocked at the amount of plastic dumped in the Mediterranean off Marseille, have set up a business – turning bottles into trainers.

Many better-off households are likely to lose their eligibility for the long-standing system of tax credits for eco-friendly home improvements and renovations next year – so if affected you may want to undertake work while 2019 lasts.

According to the main French law covering ecology and rural life - le Code de l’environnement - no one has the right to hunt on the property of others without the consent of the owner. However, very often hunting is carried out on land by default and it is necessary to show your wish to prohibit it.

A €200million project aims to encourage householders to save energy – after several expensive initiatives failed to persuade them to invest in home improvements.

The world’s largest urban farm will open on a rooftop in Paris next year.

And how does it work?

If all the projects are built – a total of 150 individual turbines – they will produce enough electricity to supply 268,000 households