that the us was involved in an attack on a military parade in the country, which killed 25 people. hassan rouhani says america and it's gulf allies backed the assault. opposition supporters in the maldives have taken to the streets to celebrate, after their candidate claimed victory in the presidential election. ibrahim solih said it was a moment of happiness and hope and called on his rival, president abdulla yameen to step down. votes are still being counted. and in britain, thousands of people have staged an anti—brexit march, demanding a second so—called "people's vote". labour party leader, jeremy corbyn, has said the party would support another referendum, if delegates backed the idea at this week's annual conference. now on bbc news, inside out. 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 thenon into the sea. 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, 1,100 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's a load of waste dumped here? and what you're 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 landfilled 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 4,000 more sites across the uk that might be worth digging up. whoa! so, what have you got here? this is a sample we've taken from a landfill site. oh, yeah, yeah, you can smell the landfill. that's pretty stinky! this is quite a tame sample. atame 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, 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 degrees 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. so, 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 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 leaching out of the bank. that's right, it's miserable. we've woken up to being in the midst of a plastic 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 kind of 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 is 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, taking out other materials, which can then be burnt and used as fuel. do you think would 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. 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, and then last minute, tend to ditch them in. so netties, not sure. foil, not sure. and big moisturising tubs. not sure!

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. 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. 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 do 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 the bottle and not the 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. on 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 reckoned 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 in 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. come and help. yeah. i'll always help nick, so, we just help. 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 but that's it for this week, i'll see you next week. bye— bye. hello. after a rather autumnal sort

of weekend, the weather is looking a little bit better for many of us, as high pressure builds through this week. this was the scene as the sun set on sunday. after a soggy sunday in the south, in whitstable there were some clear spells to end the day. now, through this week, as high pressure builds in, there will be a lot of dry weather with sunshine. warmer in the south too. there will be more rain and more wind arriving across northern parts of the uk later on in the week. but back to the here and now, monday morning dawns on quite a chilly note. we've got a big area of high pressure in charge, so that is keeping things largely dry to start off with. and under those clear spells, temperatures first thing could be near freezing in a few rural spots. through the morning, though, after that chilly start, lots of sunshine on offer. one or two showers around through monday across parts of north—west scotland. perhaps a few filtering into the north—west of england too. but for the majority of people, you're in for a dry, fine day. it will be a little bit warmer than recent days, with those winds a touch lighter too. so by the afternoon, temperatures between around about 13 to perhaps 16 degrees or so. a little bit warmer than it was on sunday, but still not great

for the time of year. and then as we head through monday evening and overnight into tuesday, then we keep the high pressure, keep the clear spells around too. fairly light winds, so yet again, another cold night, especially in the south. for england and wales too the chance of a bit of frostiness, and perhaps some mist and fog patches first thing tuesday as well. further north—west, not quite as cool. a little bit more of a breeze blowing here. through the day on tuesday, it is high pressure that drives our weather. we've got weather fronts moving into the north—west, though. that'll bring more cloud and outbreaks of rain to parts of northern ireland and scotland later in the day. england and wales on tuesday staying dry, fine and settled in the sunshine. fairly light winds here, but the winds will be picking up further north. could be gusting at around 30 or 40mph for exposed parts of north—west scotland, with some outbreaks of rain here too. so really a north—south split to the weather. a north—south split to the weather. warming up, though, 14 to perhaps 18 degrees or so, perhaps our top temperatures by tuesday afternoon. looking ahead to wednesday, still more rain for the west of scotland with cloud here. further south across england and wales, again, another dry, fine and fairly sunny day with those

temperatures starting to creep up too. so we could see highs of up to around 20 degrees or so on wednesday, and it looks like it could get warmer still as we head towards the end of the week, especially in the south. thursday probably the warmest day of the week with some sunshine, 22 degrees in london. a little bit fresher, but still dry with sunshine on offer across the country as we head through into friday. not a bad week of weather. enjoy. bye for now. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers

in north america and around the globe. my name is s lewis vaughanjones. our top stories: iran's president blames the us and its gulf allies for a deadly attack on its elite military forces. washington tells him to "look in the mirror". opposition supporters celebrate in the maldives, as their candidate claims victory in the presidential election. as thousands march against brexit — labour's leaderjeremy corbyn says he'll back another referendum, if the party wants. and the international rescue mission to save a sailor stranded and seriously injured in the indian ocean.