Environmental Group The Friends of Barry Beaches have launched a petition calling on the Welsh Government to ban the use of polystyrene fast food and drinks containers throughout Wales. They say they are “sick and tired” with removing thousands of polystyrene fast food and hot drinks containers from local Welsh beaches especially when there are bio-degradable alternatives(cardboard or cornstarch) readily available on the market. The Chairman of FoBB and also the Cabinet Member for the Environment and Visible Services on the Vale of Glamorgan Council, Councillor Rob Curtis, said: “We now need the support of the people of Britain to finally put an end to this fast food polystyrene madness. Our beach cleaning volunteers are sick and tired of removing thousands of items of polystyrene from our beaches each year. These products are made from petroleum, a non-sustainable and heavily polluting resource. It is costing local Councils millions to clean up this mess week in week out, but it is also costing our environment a lot more. Marine animals easily mistake polystyrene for fish eggs, these in turn are eaten by larger marine animals and the polystyrene is passed on. Polystyrene takes hundreds… if not thousands of years to biodegrade, in the meantime it just gets smaller and smaller thus making it easier for our wildlife to ingest! But it does not have to be this way… nearly all our larger fast food chains have switched to biodegradable alternatives. Yet go to any small takeaway on the high street or at a major event and they will nearly always supply you with a polystyrene food container and hot drink cup. None of it will be recycled because it is so difficult to recycle polystyrene. Just last month the City Council of New York unanimously decided to vote for a ban on polystyrene food containers (if they are unable to find an economical recycling solution). It is now time for the Welsh Government to take a lead and vote to protect our communities, our countryside and our beaches from this horrendous blight."

The rushed sale of the Co-operative Group Farms to the highest bidder would almost certainly mean that the land would be bought by venture capital or pension funds, who would have no interest in managing the land using co-operative principles and sustainable techniques. However, as the biggest UK land sale for decades - over 50,000 acres of land - this is also a unique opportunity to make a major contribution to sustainable UK food production and help young new farmers to access land. Like minded groups interested in buying the land (such as co-operatives and Community Farmland Trusts) will require time to put the necessary finances in place, to arrange a sale, and to find suitable tenants. The Co-operative Group board should allow time for initiatives to be planned and organised so that the co-operative management of the Co-op's farmland can continue. The founding values of the Co-operative are at stake here, and the Group will lose all credibility if it simply sells its farms to the highest bidder. Tell the Co-op board to remember its roots: "Don’t sell the soil from under our feet - fertilise the future instead!"

The public's safety is key, especially those with young families and the elderly. By Kirsty Anne Taylor with the help of my friends and a big thank you to Harry Acid for your support. https://www.facebook.com/Kirstyanne1989

This is important for govanhill residents health, dignity, peace of mind and well being. People need to feel safe in their homes and on the streets, they need to scrape back that pride in their community but it will never happen until the politicians admit the current structures do not work!

It is vital that the health and well being of the people, wildlife, geology, local industries and property value in the Wirral and whole of Merseyside are not affected by the dangers of pollution, contamination and other potential disasters such as subsidence which the processes of UCG and Fracking are known to create.

We want our employer to oppose the race to the bottom in terms and conditions for care and support staff.

BBC3 caters for the least represented group (16-34 year olds) at a time when youth culture has few opportunities to engage in the mainstream BBC3 offers great entertainment and informative programming designed for this underrepresented group. BBC3 should not be sidelined.

This is important as so many vulnerable people have died after being wrongly assessed and being made fit for work when clearly they have not been fit enough. There has been a count of 10,600 deaths between Jan-Nov 2011 some of which were suicides. How many deaths does it take for the government and ATOS to recognise the connection? Since this last count the DWP refused to release the figures that were collected calling the FOI requests "vexatious". Therefore how many more have died since? There are thousands who believe, assessments that have been undertaken were incorrect and there are thousands of witnesses to this fact, which has caused more stress and poverty as more and more people are waiting for money that has been stopped whilst waiting for their appeals to be processed correctly. Due to the negligence of this company ATOS have to be found accountable. Not only for the loved ones of the people who have died, but also for those who may have died without a family and is important that even though they have gone from this planet, they have somebody fighting for them to correct a system that clearly does not work so they did not die in vain.

We are supposed to live in a caring country where our health needs are looked after, irrespective of our financial position, free of charge from the cradle to the grave. Perusing the internet for nursing care for elderly people will uncover many examples of people not receiving the funding from the NHS for their health care that they have every legal right to expect. Many people have had to resort to expensive court action to force the National Health Service to fulfill its statutory obligations. This is not acceptable and is a national disgrace which needs to be addressed at the earliest opportunity. Please have a look at this useful website, it is crammed full of information and can provide help. http://www.caretobedifferent.co.uk/

This petition is a direct response to the perception that we cannot change the system which already exists. Even if it isn't fit for purpose, up to date with the modern world, or representative of most of the electorate. We can! The promise of parliamentary debate on any petition which reached 100.000 signatures was a brave manifesto promise by the conservatives, but without some significant changes in the way the commons work, these petitions will fall on deaf (or absent) ears. We live in an age of technology and information, many embrace it, many fear it. It is an age where almost everything you do is done on line. Whatever your personal feelings about it, the internet is here to stay, and has the so far untapped potential to allow YOU unprecedented control over YOUR life, and the direction of politics in real time. We have social media which is acting as a lightning rod, by allowing us to display our righteous indignation at policy's which we don't agree with, but with no effect whatsoever. How many would bother to sign a petition which WOULD be heard by those that create all of our futures? Internet petitions are branded "slacktivism" by the press, and yet many of us who walk in the middle of the road, or the "silent majority" fear taking part in any more pro active activism, because of the disproportionate response by the state to peaceful protest. Also in these austere times many simply cannot afford to take the time to participate in politics, except by signing these e- petitions, and going out to vote once every 4 or 5 years. At these times you are faced with a choice; to support one of 3 main parties, because it supports something which you are passionate about, even though you do not support all of the manifesto, give your vote to a fringe party, or like 45% of the electorate, not bother at all. If these changes were implemented then that would no longer need to be the way. At present there is no record (accessible to the public) of attendance in the commons except for voting figures. This is not acceptable, as the public must be able to see whether their MP has attended any debate which they have petitioned for, and for general transparency, as promised by every incoming government. All MPs are public servants, paid by the public purse, and, as we're reminded when we call HMRC, DWP, or any other government body, we are all customers of the state, and as customers we are entitled be listened to, and served well. We demand a certain level of service for our taxes,and as customers, as voters and most importantly as Humans, we demand the right to determine how we live, and have our voice heard! Its time to accept your "invitation to join the government of Britain" (This was the title of the Conservative manifesto 2010) "People have been shut out of Westminster politics for too long. Having a single vote every four or five years is not good enough – we need to give people real control over how they are governed. So, with a Conservative government, any petition that secures 100,000 signatures will be eligible for formal debate in Parliament". "The Big Society runs consistently through our policy programme. Our plans to reform public services, mend our broken society,and rebuild trust in politics are all part of our Big Society agenda. These plans involve redistributing power from the state to society; from the centre to local communities, giving people the opportunity to take more control over their lives". "Big Society; our reform plans require a social response in order to be successful. So building the Big Society is not just a question of the state stepping back and hoping for the best: it will require an active role for the state. The state must take action to agitate for, catalyse and galvanise social renewal. We must use the state to help remake society". The above are all excerpts from the Conservative party manifesto, printed before winning the 2010 general election. They all seem to say very much the same as this petition, and yet more and more of the people I speak to, feel the same as me, that they have less and less freedom, power and control over the way they are governed. Apathy is a dangerous thing because it shows a lack of hope. A lack of hope is acceptance of that which makes you unhappy. Acceptance of unhappiness is surrender. Once surrender has been accepted, it is irrevocable.

Despite a doubling in the demands on food banks in the past year, the UK Government refused to claim the UK's £22m share of a £2bn fund voted by the European Union in 2013 to tackle food deprivation across the EU. Instead, it has taken the minimum allowed sum of £3m which, despite the intention of the EU fund, it is using to prop up its already failing work programme. Labour MEP Richard Howitt, who helped negotiate the fund, said it 'defied belief' that David Cameron’s Government had 'sought to block a fund for the most deprived’. “The cost of this Government’s anti-European ideology, coupled with its bitterly felt cost-of-living crisis, is literally taking food from the mouths of children,” he said. This money would ease some of the current burden on food banks, as well as supporting the many other UK charities which help the homeless and those fleeing domestic violence.

We have a brand new, gleaming hospital which people cannot reach because it is not on a bus route. Many of the services based there: physiotherapy, falls prevention, community dieticians, are geared towards people who are frail and cannot walk long distances. 500m might not seem a long distance for most people, but on a zimmer frame or crutches it is forever. Parts of the hospital are empty because local GPs do not want to move to a building which their patients cannot access. The plans for this building always included a bus stop, but what we need now is a bus which will actually stop outside the hospital door. There is a cross party consensus that this needs to happen urgently. Please add your voice so the Mayor of London understands how important this is. Thanks.