UK soil is being destroyed at 10 times the rate it is being created, costing £1.2 billion annually in England and Wales -  but only a fraction of the cost, £10 million pounds a year in England, is needed to ensure the agricultural sector is still productive at the end of the century, and this would reverse the declining health of our rivers, claim a coalition of interest groups.

Bottles made of plastic that persist in the environment for hundreds of years could become a pollution of the past thanks to the discovery of an enzyme that eats the substance, and work by scientists to further improve it by engineering.