Reporting and stories from Plus Minus Lab: the environment, hospitality and the science of everyday care.
Fires on Indonesian Borneo have sent smoke across Sarawak, Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, pushed one Malaysian district into an emergency and led residents of West Kalimantan to take their president to court.
New Trase data show Kalimantan accounted for most of Indonesia's palm-oil clearing in 2025, as the EU's deforestation rules near their start date and widen to soaps and palm-derived ingredients.
A year after talks collapsed in Geneva, negotiators met in Bangkok to rebuild a global treaty on plastic pollution. The draft on the table has no limit on production, and the next formal round is set for 2027.
The landslides and flash floods of November 2025 killed about 1,200 people. Indonesia then revoked 28 companies' permits upstream, and researchers questioned the list. A look at what changed, and what did not.
In 2024 Thailand closed 12 marine national parks as its reefs bleached. A year later some dive sites reopened. With a strong El Niño under way in 2026, here is what happened, and how visitors can help reefs recover.
Shampoo, shower gel and other rinse-off products have until 16 October 2027 to drop intentionally added microplastics in the EU. What the rule covers, how it compares with Thailand's microbead ban, and what it leaves open.
From Marriott and IHG to Waldorf Astoria, hotels are swapping small amenity bottles for wall dispensers and full-size bottles. Plastic is the main reason given, but not the only one.
