Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide on the market. Herbicides containing glyphosate are sold under a variety of names, and are made by a large number of different manufacturers, but the most well known is RoundUp, made by Monsanto. Gardeners and farmers choose to use glyphosate herbicides because they are both very effective, and have a very low toxicity to people and animals. Despite the fact that there is very clear scientific evidence that herbicides containing glyphosate are safe, and don't cause cancer (see sources at the bottom), and even though multiple well-respected international scientific bodies have examined all of the evidence and also concluded there is no link between glyphosate and cancer, a jury in California decided that a man's cancer was caused by it. As a result companies like B&Q and Homebase are considering removing glyphosate herbicides from their shelves. Waitrose is already doing it. If glyphosate herbicides are taken away, gardeners and farmers will have no alternative but to switch to other, more toxic herbicides, like pyraflufen ethyl (2x more toxic than glyphosate), dicamba (about 6 times more toxic than glyphosate), or diquat (almost 40 times more toxic than glyphosate). As a gardener, I use glyphosate for weed control, particularly invasive, difficult to get rid of ones like Ground Elder and Bindweed. Farmers are increasingly using it as part of no-till farming, to avoid having to break up soil which leads to soil degradation and erosion. Why should my health and well-being, and the safety of my family be put at risk by knee-jerk responses to a poorly made judgement in a foreign court? Gardeners and farmers should be allowed to decide for ourselves if we want to continue to use RoundUp and other glyphosate herbicides, rather than having it imposed on us. Courts are not good places to determine scientific issues. Juries can be swayed by emotions (a dying man vs a large faceless, not particularly trusted corporation), and because juries don’t generally consist of scientific experts, and therefore, like the rest of us, they aren't in a position to properly evaluate scientific evidence, particularly in a courtroom where they're under pressure to try and decide between 2 competing stories. So when the science says glyphosate is safe, I believe companies should trust the science, rather than relying on a single flawed court case that is being appealed. Sources: - Andreotti et al. 2017. A large, long-term cohort study with over 50,000 participants that wasn’t funded by Monsanto, which failed to find an association between glyphosate use and cancer among farmers. - Mink et al. 2012. A meta-analysis of 21 cohort and case-controlled studies in humans concluded that there is "no consistent pattern of positive associations indicating a causal relationship between total cancer (in adults or children) or any site-specific cancer and exposure to glyphosate". - Regulatory oversight agencies in the US, Europe and elsewhere in the world, including the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (acting on behalf of European Commission and European Food Safety Authority), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Health Organization Core Assessment Group, the European Union, the World Health Organization International Programme on Chemical Safety, the EPA, and the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority have all reviewed the over 800 studies on glyphosate (many of which are independent) and concluded there is no link between glyphosate and cancer. (Declaration of interest: I have never worked for or receive any money from Monsanto or any other chemical or agricultural company.)

The youth have no where to play socialise and meet so they hang around the town in groups they desperately need some where to go.

I cycle to work every day but storing my bike is a real problem. I used to lock it up outside my flat until it was stolen. Now I store it in my back yard which means carrying it through the flat both rain and shine. There are many benefits to cycling - environmental, financial, health both physical and mental and just pure enjoyment. I know many more people would cycle but can’t due to: living in a flat - don't have outside space/shed have to carry your bike up/down stairs want to start cycling but can't buy a bike as have no-where to store it or don't have space for all your family's bikes I have been trying to campaign to get Cyclehoop Bikehangars https://www.cyclehoop.rentals/types/bikehangars in the local area. I have seen them in other boroughs and I think they are great. I know a lot of you expressed a desire for them and either requested one via Cyclehoop, emailed our Local Concillor Matt Kelcher [email protected] or e-mailed Brent Council https://www.cyclehoop.rentals/contact-council. However to keep up the pressure and ensure you get one where you desire can you please sign this petition and state in the reasons for signing box where you would like one to be sited.

The recent heatwave in the northern hemisphere has cost thousands of lives and livelihoods, burned thousands of homes and destroyed millions of crops. That's just the latest in a long list of worldwide disasters that are all a result of climate change, which is caused by emitting ever more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We have to stop now for any chance of avoiding the situation getting much worse.

Too stop bellway building houses. Putting more pressure on our local services, and roads. Keeping our children safe and some where to play. To keep our fields green, keeping our open space for our younger generations. People need a place to walk our dogs and socialise. KEEP OUR FIELDS GREEN

These companies make huge profits selling electronic items, for example in the 4th quarter of 2017 Apple posted revenue of $52.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $10.7 billion. Apple sold 46.7 million iPhones during this same period. A lot of that profit comes from selling newer versions of an existing product to existing customers, with no consideration for the older product. These older products and broken or obsolete items invariably end up in the rubbish in the UK or being shipped overseas to countries like China, or more recently Thailand and Malaysia, who have no capability to properly recycle these items. These electronic items sit around covering vast areas of land slowly polluting the soil and ground water and causing health problems for local communities. These electronic companies promote and benefit massively from promoting consumerism, but deal with non of the consequences of our throw away society that they have helped create. These electronic items contain lots of plastic and hard to extract natural resources such as cadium or lithium. The extraction of these metals from the environment invariably leads to environmental degradation, we are then throwing these products away causing further long lasting damage to the environment. We then have to extract more of these same materials that are thrown away to keep pace with demand. It is time for the companies, who make such vast profits, to be held accountable for the environmental damage their products create. A tax should be levied by the British government on the profits of any of these companies domicile in the UK, to cover the cost of properly recycling and where possible reusing the various components of their electronic products.

It is extremely important to recycle our waste due to the negative affect it has on our environment and should be looked at as a global problem and not just a local one. A lot of our electronic waste from the UK ends up in different third world countries such as Ghana which is then burned and smelted to extract metals such as copper etc. In the process, heavy metals and toxins are released posing huge health risks for the people involved in such activities. The BBC have already documented on this issue in Ghana where people don't even have basic health protection equipment and are dying from smoke inhalation and toxic metal concentration. We as the community of Blackburn with Darwen will not be involved in allowing any of our waste to cause harm to anyone due to negligence and ineffective waste management!

Plastic is a major polluter of landfill sites and more and more of our plastic is ending up in our oceans. Every year the amounts increase. We need to take steps, even small ones, to protect our world for our children and grandchildren.

Tampax worked well using cardboard applicators so there's no need for plastic. These things are having a massive impact on our coastlines. In their 2016 beach clean-up, the Marine Conservation Society found twenty tampon applicators and sanitary items per 100m of shoreline! We need Procter and Gamble to take responsibility for the single use plastics they are releasing into the environment and to discontinue the production of plastic applicators.

It is very important to the health issues of all people in and around the Oldham borough and the absolute state of most places in Oldham due to this poor collection service

The UK uses 1.2 BILLION meters (745,000 miles) of plastic clingfilm every year and it goes straight to landfill as it cannot be recycled and not easily reused. This is not an easy product to replace with eco-friendly alternatives in the home or catering industry.

For a long time the country has - for the most part - relied on fossil fuels to power our houses, businesses and transportation. These fossil fuels are becoming harder and harder to pull from the earth and the effects are devastating. Not to mention the fuels we are now receiving are severely reduced in quality - what is known as "dirty fuel." Our government spends billions in subsidies on the polluting fuel sources, a market that is drastically unsustainable. Crawley is a constantly developing town. The past five years have seen the town move from having thirteen districts to fourteen and the outskirts, once fields and forest land, are now developing communities. It is clear more people are seeing the geographical benefits of the town, nestled between London and Brighton. Not only this, Gatwick Airport offers a variety of jobs and links to myriad destinations around the globe. This is where I see the importance of this initiative. As more and more people move into the area, large-scale developments are taking place. Our carbon footprint is growing, as are the prices we pay for energy. The Public Green Energy Initiative aims to move people away from relying on corporations ownership of our energy so that we, as consumers, are no longer under the threat of dramatically increasing energy prices. Not only would moving to green energy be sustainable for the future, it gives people an opportunity to reduce costs and feed energy back into the grid. This lowers our prices and helps us build a local economy in green energy infrastructure. Gatwick Airport (LGW) has already started its own initiative by changing all of its bulbs to LED's (runway included) and plans to become the worlds first entirely LED lit airport. If the surrounding town of Crawley joins in turning to renewable sources of energy, the town and conjoined airport could become a model for the country. The extra added benefit - if we turn to become a green energy town, there is a huge opportunity for a total change in town, transport and community planning. Bus routes could be added and subsidized by local council in order to reduce the need for cars for small journeys. This means that areas of the town would be more accessible for workers, the elderly and the youth. Cycle routes would be improved and cycle initiatives, such as the cycle to work scheme, could be promoted through local companies. By making the energy public, the public get the vote on where their energy comes from and therefore gain independence and pride in taking part in something large-scale.