who accused his us supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh of sexual assault. christine blasey ford said judge kavanaugh tried to rape her when they were both teenagers. british prime minister theresa may has delivered a defiant statement about her plans for brexit. she has called on the eu to show britain more respect. european council president donald tusk said he remains convinced they can still find a compromise. alcohol kills three million people worldwide each year — more than aids, violence and road accidents combined. that's according to a new report from the world health organisation, which says men are particularly at risk. the report also stresses that harm from drinking is greater among poorer consumers than wealthier ones. now on bbc news, the inside out programme has an exclusive report on the latest idea for disposing of the plastic mountain. researchers have found a way to make

new greener fuel from plastic mined from landfill, but some environmentalists say plastic should be left buried. hello and welcome to inside out. bury it, dig it up, recycle it. what can we do about plastic? scientists have found a way to make a new greener fuel from plastic dug up from landfill. opponents say it should be left where it is. we have the exclusive. this is a sample we've taken from a landfill site and it could potentially power your car in the future. confused about what you can and can't recycle? don't worry, help is at hand. you're lucky because in peterborough, you can recycle black. and the man who's picked up ten tonnes of other people's rubbish and is still going strong. on the surface, the river looks absolutely fine apart from where you get floating litter, like bottles.

but 80% of the litter is below the surface so you've got basically a conveyor belt of rubbish moving out of towns and cities into the wider river system and then on into the sea. i am david whiteley and this is inside out. this week's programme is all about plastics. first — an exclusive report on the latest attempts to do something useful with the plastic we throw away. scientists have discovered how to turn landfill plastic like this into new cleaner fuels. but if we dig it up, could a site near you unearth new problems forfuture generations? every week, 1100 tonnes of household waste are buried in this landfill site.

it is just one of 20,000 landfill sites in the uk and between them, they contain 400 million tonnes of plastic. chris quinnell has been shifting waste in wiltshire for the last three years. from your experience, chris, is this the kind of thing you see every time there is a load of waste dumped here? and what you are dealing with is mainly plastic. yeah, definitely. these days, because everything is sorted out, the wood, the metals have been taken out on the majority of the loads and that's basically what you get left with. it is quite shocking to see how much plastic is here? and this is, you know, a relatively small landfill site, isn't it? yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. i mean, it has been noticeably more plastic in the last few years, so, what do you do with it? where does it go? how can you recycle this sort of stuff? that's a question scientist dr stuart wagland is attempting to answer. he is part of a europe—wide push to promote enhanced landfill mining.

enhanced landfill mining is the concept that we can recover maximum value from landfills, so we can reclaim the majority of resources which are contained within the landfills, we can reclaim the land for development, and we can recover materials of interest, such as rare earth elements, critical raw materials, valuable metals, but also plastic. stuart's leading a government—backed project to recover landfill plastic and turn it into a new fuel. he and his team at cranfield university in bedfordshire have so far identified 850 landfill sites in england, suitable to be mined. of these, 83 are in the east and within each one, up to a fifth of the contents will be plastic. but the team think there could be up to 4000 more sites across the uk that might be worth digging up. so, what have you got here? this is a sample we've taken

from a landfill site. yeah, you can smell the landfill. that's pretty stinky! this is quite a tame sample. a tame sample, how old is this sample, then? about five years old, this one. if you take all this stuff here. ugh! some of this has degraded really quite considerably but that has barely changed at all, has it? but the stuff you're really after is this kind of plastic that we just can't recycle. so things like this, dense plastic, this, realistically, even if it wasn't landfilled or cleaned, this wouldn't be recyclable anyway. and film plastic, very rarely recycled in the uk. so all of this plastic material is a potential resource. so we're looking at these plastics in particular to understand how, how they've behaved in landfill sites. so we're looking at the construction of them, have they changed or are they the same as the plastic that went in, and then looking at the technology that we can apply to recover

the best possible value for these. stuart and the team are using a technology called pyrolysis. it's already been used to turn non—landfill plastic into gas and oil by heating it at temperatures exceeding 600 celsius. until now, it's not been possible to do this with the dirty plastic from landfill, but stuart's team have found a way. can we see the oil? we can. this sample here, this is household waste which has the metals and glass taken away, but everything else has been used in the pyrolysis plant. so, this oil is very similar in consistency to crude oil, but we believe we can upgrade this, to produce chemicals and liquid fuels. it could potentially power your car in the future. how environmentally friendly is this process of turning this into oil and gas, because the process i believe creates carbon dioxide? it does, but it doesn't produce carbon dioxide in the same way as if we were to burn this material.

and also it saves carbon in that it replaces transport fuels and raw materials that we would derive from crude oil, so it has that lower carbon impact. but digging up old landfill site is controversial. at the moment, researchers are not revealing the location of the 83 sites in the east, as this may stir up opposition... as i discover on the banks of the thames. it's a beautiful day here on the beach, but all is not what it seems. the thames estuary has long been london's dumping ground for more than 100 years. and when you first get onto this beach, here in tilbury, you think, "wow, look at all these pebbles glinting in the sun." but they're not all pebbles. here on clinker beach, fragments of glass, china and hazardous materials, such as asbestos

from a nearby old and unsecured landfill, are washed up with each new tide. and plastic from the old site is also on display. julian kirby is the plastics pollution campaigner for friends of the earth. this is unbelievable, isn't it? plastic just leaching out of the bank. that's right, it's miserable. we've woken up to being in the midst of a plastics pollution crisis, the public concern after blue planet ii, and all the rest of it. and to see this plastic rubbing out, washing out, eroding out and going straight into the thames here is absolutely shocking. surely it makes sense to take this out, mine what's here and put it to some good use? there'll be a lot in that landfill that would be good to get out and put to good use. metals, precious metals that are in computers and laptops and watches and all the rest of it. but getting plastic out, turning it back into oil and then burning it, essentially that's what's happening, that's going to be very, very bad for climate change. julian would prefer that plastic

is left in a modern secure landfill where it cannot escape. if it's a secure landfill then leave it there. it's a fossil fuel that has been put back in the ground where it came from and whilst it's there, it's not going to be polluting the atmosphere and driving climate change. clearly this isn't a secure landfill. but if there are many people who are saying they can turn this resource from plastic in landfill into cleaner fuel, that surely has to be a good thing? so if they say this is cleaner fuels, what they mean is it's a slightly less terrible type of fossil fuel. it's still a fossil fuel, that's not clean in climate terms. but burning plastic, whether it's a fancy technology like pyrolysis or whether it's in an incinerator, is incredibly polluting and that's why we need to be massively reducing how much plastic we use altogether and not locking ourselves into a whole new economy of plastic. but take a trip upriver to the city of london and there's a different view. investors are looking to see if digging up all the waste found in landfill will turn a profit.

and they argue the 400 million tonnes of plastic held in the uk's landfill sites, is too valuable to be left buried. legal practice latham and watkins is an international law firm and partner paul davies is an environmental lawyer. what is the best way in your opinion to make enhanced landfill mining viable economically? i think you need to bring together what i would call the three revenue streams, and that's looking at the value of the land, taking out the materials which can be recovered and recycled, like rare earth minerals which can be very valuable indeed. and then the third revenue stream is taking out other materials which can then be burnt and used as fuel. friends of the earth say that plastic should be kept in landfill if it can't be recycled, because there it can do no harm, but obviously you don't agree? they have their view. i think we need to look at individual landfills on a case by case basis. but those materials have

already been manufactured, so i think the idea that you can recycle existing materials has to be a good thing. do you think that we'd be crazy not to do this? absolutely, i think we would be crazy. we're already seeing examples of enhanced landfill mining about to happen. there's a site in belgium at remo, which we believe is entering the very final stages of getting approvals and that will set an important precedent for others to follow. and the idea that we have landfills up and down the country, containing all of these materials and we leave them there, ijust find bewildering. back in wiltshire, how does owner richard view the prospects for mining his landfill site in future? if it becomes cheaper for companies to dig up sites rather than managing them for decades, the prospect of mining for plastic will be attractive and it's predicted we could be using fuel from landfill plastic within ten years. as many of us try hard to change our habits when it comes to recycling correctly, do any of us actually know what plastics can and can't go in the recycling bin? well, sophie sulehria

has been to meet some people on one street in peterborough as they get to grips with their waste. i keep my shelf here full of things that i'm not sure about, then at the last minute tend to ditch them in. so netties, not sure. foil, not sure. and big moisturising tubs. i'm really not sure about this. i wasn't sure about the bubble wrap, whether that can go in the recycling or whether it needs to go in the landfill bin. like many of us, the residents of thorpe lea road in peterborough are confused when it comes to recycling. last year, only half the plastic that could have been recycled in the uk actually was. it seems that many don't know what to do. i think i'm a very good recycler, but i get confused with items like these. but help is at hand for the residents of thorpe lea road. they're going to get a recycling master class. and the person to do it is here, conveniently in the centre of peterborough. her name is anne hitch, and she works for recoup — a national plastic recycling charity based in the city.

recoup, ideally, are here to try and make sure that the maximum amount of plastics are recycled. so that means us working with the brand owners to make sure that their packaging is simple to recycle, right through to educating consumers, which we are doing today because we hear so often that they are confused. recoup have just completed their latest survey of recycling. the good news is we're putting more plastic out for collection. last year, over 500 tonnes were collected from uk households — that's almost a 3% increase on 2016. but the average household uses nearly 500 plastic bottles a year, yet only recycles around 300 of them, meaning 200 bottles are not collected for recycling. time for anne to meet our residents

to see if she can help them sort their bubble wrap from their food trays. so with this biscuit box, on the back it says that the box can be recycled, that's quite obvious. but then this black plastic tray, it says check local recycling but i don't know how i would do that or what the answer is. you're lucky because in peterborough you can recycle black. and your bubble wrap is a no. that's for landfill. yep, so we will keep that out. black not in all areas, but most coloured bottles and trays can go in. this food tray here, you know, actually, they're not too bad as a street when it comes to recycling, they've done a lot of things right. but they still got confused by the items that are confusing, like this net, bubble wrap.

i never know what to with bubble wrap! and then on top of that, it changes depending on where you live. so each local authority has their own recycling rules, which you then have to check yourself. this is not as simple as i was hoping it to be. and sarah still has questions about her moisturiser bottle, which seems to have left both her and anne stumped. this is an odd one because we would normally say that if it's a pump lid, that the pump lid you would separate away from the bottle, and you would recycle bottle and not pump lid. however, i can't see any indication on the bottle, or the lid. i would recommend that we take this to a plastics recycling facility and we see how and if this can be detected. great idea. thank you, anne. we're going to take sarah to a state of the art recycling centre to find out what to do

with the problem bottle. morning. good morning! you ready for our big day? i'm very ready... only thing is, it's a lot further away than we'd expected. do you have any idea where we're off to? no, i thought it might be ten minutes or so away, but i'm seeing from your sat nav it's about an hour and 56. yep, it's a two hour drive. yes, the recycling plant is two hours away, in rochester, in kent, where a lot of the plastic from the east of england ends up. this is because there's only a handful of these special plastic recovery facilities in the country, and rochester is the closest to us. finally, sarah and i arrive at viridor recycling plant where we're greeted by ed sarasketa, the site manager. hi, i'm ed. hi, nice to meet you, i'm sarah. hi, sarah. right, shall we go in and have a look at the facility? yeah, absolutely.

excellent. so, as you can see, you've got a real mix of colours, polymer types, completely mixed up and ourjob is to take each of those bales, separate it, and run it through the plant, and separate all the different polymer types, so we can send it on for recycling and create that kind of circular economy. it's so loud inside this plant but what you can see here are 121 conveyor belts, which are sorting the plastics into types. the plant can then generate up to 350 bales of plastic per day. and if you think, one bale alone can contain up to over 17,000 bottles — that is a lot of plastic! we effectively take any plastics that you put into your recycling, then the plant works on those plastics and separates them out into your pet, which is your water bottles,

hdpe, which is your milk bottles, polypropylene, pots, tubs, trays, those kinds of things. the machines are able to detect the different types of plastics, or polymers, separates them, and squashes them down into bales. so, here at rochester, what we look to do is absolutely recycle everything that comes in here. what does come in here though isn't all recyclable materials. so we end up at a figure of about 80% is actually recycled, because it's recyclable. what's the worst thing that you've ever found on a conveyor belt? we get a lot of different items coming into the site. probably the most unpleasant are nappies, so what we would ask residents is to think about what you're looking to recycle and put the right things into the right bin. ugh, not a nice thought when you think some of the sorting involves sifting by hand.

let me show you what the end product is, as you were asking us outside. so here we have some of the flake material, then they sell this on to turn it back into water bottles. and these are effectively from the milk bottles you saw outside. and then they go in, to be turned back into milk bottles, and they replace virgin materials. but there's still one more question, can ed be the one to tell sarah where she should put her moisturiser bottle? can this be recycled? let me have a look. ideally, from your point of view, you'd want to be able to take the plastic top off if it's different. but, again, i think the message needs to be if you put this material into the right bin, so the right stuff in the right bin, it then comes to me, then it has the best chance of being recycled, rather than putting it into your rubbish bin. so not even ed is entirely sure if the bottle can be recycled. but although recycling plastic can be confusing,

the message from viridor is clear. if in doubt, put your plastic into your recycling bin, rather than in your rubbish bin. of course we all want to make sure we keep our countryside looking like this, pristine. but picking up other people's waste isn't everyone‘s idea of fun but that is not the case for nick urquhart from kettering, picking up litterfor him is a bit of a passion. i have been fishing the rivers near my home in kettering for years. this is the river ise. but my enjoyment has been spoiled by the increasing amount of plastic waste littering the waterways. 0n the surface, the river looks absolutely fine, apart from where you get floating litter, like bottles. but often 80% of the litter is below the surface, so you have got basically a conveyor belt of rubbish moving out of towns and

cities into the wider river system and then on into the sea. i don't just talk about the problem, i want to do something about the waste i see around me. even while fishing, i am busy collecting discarded rubbish. another one. it's another plastic vase, exactly the same. some of them float, some of them go to the bottom. and once it is on the bottom, it will silt up and it will be forgotten, basically. but all the time you have got chemicals coming out of that plastic. so, yeah, it is something that needs to be tackled at source, in the small rivers all over the country. i'm not alone. other people are also getting angry and picking up other people's rubbish. every day they come down here because it's nice, pleasant and what do they leave? their rubbish. every day.

three times a day i walk the dogs down here and there is not a day goes past where i don't pick rubbish up. just dispose of the stuff that, you know, packaging. it's easy to recycle as well. packaging. they could take it with them, they brought it here so they should really take it home with them. they have had the enjoyment, take it home, put it in the bin. yeah. i know, that's part of the problem, they are not setting an example as well. if they are out with their kids, they tend to just discard it. the kids see them doing that and then the next generation will do that. yeah. i have been collecting waste for the past eight years and it is no exaggerating to say it has become something of a passion for me. i reckon i have cleared over ten tonnes of litter from kettering in that time. that is the weight of ten cars. i find rubbish literally everywhere. this is a storm water outflow, it carries water from the roads and into the river. basically you get plastics trapped in the gratings and this is the kind of stuff

that is not recyclable and it is clogging up the river system all across the uk. you get a lot of litter that is hidden in brooks like this, it is normally windblown from waste carriers on roads and, as you can see, it is actually embedded within the bank and within the foliage that's become trapped. it is pretty hard to recover it once it is wrapped around, but this is the kind of stuff that councils just will never get to. what sort of damage can that do? there's the risk from leaching chemicals and toxins into the water, that can affect aquatic organisms and affect the breeding cycles of fish and other aquatic animals. and also there is a clogging risk that animals can choke on it. and eventually it will work its way to the sea and then it becomes an international problem in terms of it. it doesn't matter where you live, this problem is worldwide and

it will add to that. you can spend all day being angry about it but it is not going to clean the problem, so i think if we all tackle this together and if we get some kind of coverage of the issue, generally it is a fixable problem, but it is just a question of time and effort of people actually putting some time to solve the problem. i take the rubbish i collect and dispose of it responsibly. most of it gets recycled with the local council. my enthusiasm has rubbed off on some of my friends and work colleagues who often come out and join me in my quest. i am just very disappointed in the amount of mess that goes into the rivers. it's always rubbish that could be put into a bin properly. there is no reason for it, you have got pockets, you can bring a bag with you to take your rubbish with you. when i go to beaches, i am always picking rubbish up. and when i heard about this, i was like, yes, come do it. just the fact that it is not biodegradable, it

doesn't go anywhere, it stays in the rivers and goes into the seas and animals. we have all seen the documentaries about what happens to the plastic in the seas. i was recently really surprised and flattered to learn that the prime minister, theresa may, had heard of my litter picking in kettering. she even sent me a letter praising my work, calling it a fantastic achievement. at first, i didn't really want the publicity, being quite shy. but it will help the cause, it shows also it is a symptom that people are starting to talk about it generally in the public. so, it is a good thing. i don'tjust clean up rivers, this public footpath running alongside the busy a14 is covered in plastic waste. it makes me feel frustrated that people can't take ownership of the problem. most people don't like to litter but yet it is happening on a daily basis, so clearly something is wrong. something is wrong with the system that we have got and doing litter picks like this, i think, will change that. people will start to notice that

people are picking it up and they might get inspired and go out there and start their own group. i will continue to pick every week and basically as long as i can. i enjoy doing it and it's good to make a difference. if i can go to a place and leave it better than i found it, that gives me such a great feeling of fulfilment and i know i am making a difference in my community. well, we certainly need less plastic and, of course, fewer litter bugs. if you missed any of tonight's programme, you can catch up on the iplayer and if there's something you think we should be looking into, well, you can get in touch with me. but that's it for this week, i'll see you next week. bye— bye. hello. good morning.

for all this, it will be quite a chilly weekend on the way. storm bronagh has been battling scandanavia recently, and the cooler, showery s team has been replaced by all this cloud that is coming in from the area. don't expect much sunshine for england and wales and also northern ireland. it will turn to cloud over. be fixed in the cloud in the south—west. it will spill into wales and the south—east of england later in the day. maybe the south midlands, uncertainty as to how far north it will get. sunny

spells for scotland, a scattering of showers. not form at all, 13— 14, fairly typically miserable under that rain. still around during the evening its way into east anglia. they dangle —— reading waylaid into the night. maureen appears in its sales to push further north by sunday morning. towards scotland it will be clear and cold, easily down to two or or three degrees. sunny spells and showers for northern scotland. improving weather for northern ireland. the rain could be quite heavy across england and wales. as it starts to move away towards the east in the afternoon and evening, watch out for windy weather on the back edge of that rain. gales are quite likely and it will feel quite cold out there. that area of low pressure deepens as it leaves our shores. it takes the wind and rain away with it. quite quickly high pressure built in behind. at long last, the weather is settling down again. maybe showers coming into northern scotland, quite windy down the north sea coast as well. on

the whole the winds will become lighter. still not very warm. 14— 16 at best on monday. the reason things are settling down is because the jet strea m are settling down is because the jet stream is putting its weight much further north. higher pressure building in across the uk. as we have seen over the past week, the jet stream picks up areas of low pressure. these areas into the early pa rt pressure. these areas into the early part of next week will be steered to the north of the uk. dry on tuesday, light winds were the most part. chilly night, plenty of sunshine during the day. temperatures perhaps up during the day. temperatures perhaps up to 17. maggots and rain into the north—west after tuesday. goodbye. —— may get some rain. this is bbc news, i'm kasia madera.

our top stories: senators' ultimatum to the accuser of supreme court nominee — reach a deal to appear, or we vote without you. us secretary of state mike pompeo tells the bbc that north korea is still a nuclear threat — though plans for a second summit are under way. it's in the works, we're hoping everything falls together. it makes good sense here, before too terribly long. in a defiant speech, the british prime minister theresa may has drawn the battle lines on brexit, after her proposals were rejected by eu leaders. european council president donald tusk says he remains convinced they can still find a compromise. the messaging app used by paedophiles — how police are struggling to prevent grooming.