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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Hello my friend, I'm pausing this profile for now - but come join us over on Threads or my newsletter if you'd like to hear more positive news! 🌎✨ www.threads.com/@sambentley subscribepage.io/goodnewsletter

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Sam | Sustainable Living (@sambentley) • Threads, Say more

280.5K Followers • 0 Threads • ✨Good News✨ for our planet you may not have heard about! ⧇ sam@sambentley.co.uk. See the latest conversations with @sambentley.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

🇰🇪 Kenya overturns a law that threatened farmers with two years in prison for sharing traditional seeds, a huge win for food security and traditional knowledge!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

📚 University of the People’ offers a free college education to anyone in the world! It’s the first nonprofit, tuition-free, accredited online university and is currently reaching around 150,000 students around the world.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

🇷🇴 Romania creates the largest deposit-return recycling scheme in the world! Their plastic bottle collection scheme has taken them from one of the lowest recycling rates in the EU to upto 94% collection in just two years, with more than 500,000 tonnes of high-quality recyclable materials collected.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

🇵🇱 Poland has banned fur farming! They’re the 23rd EU country to take this step, and with all farms closing by 2033, it’ll save 3 million animals a year.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

🌎 This years COP 30 saw the largest ever number of Indigenous participants represented, and some positive progress such as commitment from Brazil to demarcate and recognise more Indigenous land

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

A Native American tribe, The Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, reclaimed around 900 acres of ancestral land along Yosemite National Park's border, after being forced out of it during the Gold Rush 175 years ago.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

☀️ Changes to regulations could bring balcony solar power to millions in the US! Utah was the first US state to pass legislation allowing the purchase of small, portable, plug-in solar panels, giving people free, accessible energy. New York, Pennsylvania and others are now filing bills to follow!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

🌳 Indigenous activists in Borneo filed a successful lawsuit against a palm oil company, forcing them to pausing their clearing of local forests after disputes over violation of it’s lease and sustainability certification.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

🌍 After another successful legal challenge by Greenpeace and Uplift, fossil fuel giant Shell has been forced to reveal the true climate impact of it’s controversial oil field Jackdaw, by including the millions of tonnes of emissions that would come from burning the oil and gas over its lifetime.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

🐦 The soil dug to make London’s Elizabeth line has helped nesting birds in Essex! Three million tonnes of earth was transported from London to make wetlands on an island in Essex, where incredibly, almost 40,000 birds have been able to use it for refuge, shelter and nursery for their chicks.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

🇦🇺 Australia makes its largest reform to environmental laws in decades! Changes include more protection for native forests, stricter rules for land clearing, a limit on fast-tracking of coal and gas projects, and their first independent environment regulator. Implementation will begin in 2026.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

🚨 BREAKING: UK government announces it will end licensing for new oil and gas exploration! Windfall taxes for fossil fuel companies will also not be lowered. The Gov also announced an end-to-end support service to help workers move into more sustainable fields, including a £20m training fund.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

🌳 Colombia has become the first country to declare its entire Amazon region off limits to large-scale mining and hydrocarbons. The decision protects nearly half a million square kilometers of the Colombian Amazon, reaffirming that for Colombia, life is above any extractive model.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

🇧🇷 Brazil recorded its largest drop in emissions since 2009, falling by 16.7% last year, driven by a major crackdown on illegal deforestation in the Amazon.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

🇦🇺Australia has so much solar, they’re giving it away for free! From July 2026, the ’solar sharer’ scheme will launch in 3 states, offering 3 hours of free solar power in the middle of the day. Using the abundance of excess solar, and helping reduce grid pressure during peak evening times.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

🦐 Holland & Barrett became the first major UK retailer to phase out all krill products, marking a huge win for protecting Antarctic wildlife. Now let’s hope other stores follow soon.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

🦩 Flamingos are nesting in Florida after 100 years! After initially being blown off their migration course by Hurricane Ilda and arriving in Florida, the populations may be able to thrive there again, thanks to large efforts to restore the coastal ecosystems.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

🦉Barn owl numbers in West Cheshire, England are SOARING thanks to Dot Bramall who launched a volunteer group in 1995 with her husband. From just 6 pairs in 1994, there are around 160 today thanks to nest boxes being placed in key spots and habitats being protected. We need more Dots in this world!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

🦮Good news for pets! UK’s new 'Renter’s Rights Bill' includes the right to have a pet. Landlords now can't ban pets without a justifiable reason, shifting the default status on rentals rejecting pet owners, keeping more animals and families together, and reducing the number of animals in shelters.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

🏭 California is cutting off its last major coal supply this month! While only 2.2% of California’s electricity came from coal in 2024, this gesture alongside the state's huge investments in wind and solar, shows that the US is still moving towards a more sustainable energy mix for the future!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

🪶 Stella McCartney unveils world first plant based feathers! With over a billion birds killed each year for their feathers and many plucked alive, this innovation is an ethical, creative and sustainable alternative for the fashion industry.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

🪵 US company Inventwood engineers a ”superwood” 10 times stronger than steel. With 90% lower carbon emissions than steel production, and being lighter and faster to work with, it’s much more sustainable and has just launched commercially!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

🇮🇪 Ireland makes their Artists Basic Income programme permanent! After several years of trialling, the programme supporting 2,000 artists a year has shown increased further income, quality of life, happiness, and more money generated for the economy than the cost of the scheme.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

🚨BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani is elected as Mayor of New York. His ambitious community focussed policies include freezing rent, making city buses free, universal childcare, as well as a tax on the city’s wealthiest residents to fund the policies.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

🇲🇽 Women in Mexico are preserving ancient Aztec ecosystems! ’Chinampas’ are island farms built thousands of years ago. A growing group of women are buying land to help preserve these rare ecosystems that are threatened by over development, tourism and pollution.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

🛳️ EU proposes stricter rules to tackle the second largest source of microplastics in the ocean! New proposed rules around the transportation of “nurdles” (plastic pellets used in plastic production) aim to reduce accidents like ship spills and reduce the number of nurdles released by up to 74%!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

🇦🇺 Australians use leaf blowers to help guide 100 million migrating crabs towards the shore! Each year the locals on Christmas Island use rakes and leaf blowers to help clear millions of migrating crabs from the roads, so they’re safe from vehicles and can complete their journey.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

🥬 Plant rich diets could save 40,000 early deaths a day! A new report from global experts lays out how low-meat and high-plant diets could increase life expectancy, feed a larger population, and cut global food emissions in half by 2050!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

🚶🏼A high school in Maine has introduced “detention hikes," where students walk local trails as an alternative to being isolated in a room. The initiative is already showing promising results, with students reporting better moods, fewer repeat offences, and even a newfound love for the outdoors.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

🌳 Native Pine Martens return to the UK for the first time in a century! 19 of the species (from the weasel family!) have been released in secret locations around Exmoor National Park in a pioneering nature recovery project. They’ll be tracked with radio collars that will fall off in 6-9 months.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

🌳 Trees in the Amazon Rainforest are getting fatter! A Cambridge University study over 30 years found the number and size of large trees is increasing, which is a good sign of their resilience to climate change, and also means they are storing more carbon.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

🇨🇱 Chile’s air pollution policies are helping lift the smog cloud in the city of Santiago! After 30 years of efforts including reducing agricultural burning, electrifying public transport and more, the number of hours people are exposed to high levels of pollution has fallen by an epic 66%!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

🎣 After 40 years, Muskegon Lake in Michigan is no longer toxic! After years of waste water, debris, metals and oils being dumped in the lake, $84 million was invested to remove waste and restore the habitat, wetlands and lakebed.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

☀️ Solar power is on track to take over wind and coal as leading energy sources for the US! Experts looking ahead to 2028 say solar and wind have the most capacity to grow, while coal is not forecasted to increase.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

🚗 London meets legal limits for NO2 air pollution 200 years earlier than expected! Ambitious efforts from the Mayor over the past 9 years included creating the world’s largest clean air zone with the expanded ULEZ scheme and largest zero-emission bus fleet in Western Europe.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

🌳 Madagascar programme helps farmers gain land ownership and reduces deforestation! To help protect 14,000 species (90% of which are found nowhere else!) in Madagascars forests, this programme worked alongside farmers and helped them shift from illegal farming across 11 protected areas.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

🌊 Global agreement to protect oceans is set to become international law! The High Seas Treaty agreeing to protect 30% of ocean waters by 2030 will now be legally binding as 60 countries have agreed to it - and in record time too!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

🚴🏻 Atlanta community build their own bike lane to connect local schools! A programme helping neighbourhoods to lead, fund and trial local initiatives in Atlanta has just completed it’s 20th project, by transforming on-street parking into a two-way cycle lane!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

🧑🏻‍⚕️ Huntington’s disease has been successfully treated for the first time! A research team at University College London have trialled a new gene therapy that showed a 75% slow down in disease progression, meaning patients could have a much longer and higher quality of life.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

🌍 EU introduces 30% reduction targets on food waste by 2030! Recent negotiations saw ambitious new environmental targets being passed for food and fashion. These included reducing food waste across households, retailers and restaurants and cutting the 25-40% of fabric wasted in clothes production.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

☀️ California gets their first solar-covered canal! Placing panels over waterways generates clean energy while keeping the panels cooler, saves space compared to traditional solar farms, and reduces water loss from evaporation. There’s only a handful in the world so far - hopefully changing soon!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

🦬 Bison make an extraordinary comeback in Yellowstone National Park! Conservation efforts helped grow a population from a few dozen to 5,000, and a new study shows their grazing helps spread nutrients that boost grass growth and make it 150% more nutritious, helping to revive entire ecosystems!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

🪸Philippines declares over 60,000 hectares of ocean as protected landscape! These waters contain some of the coral reefs most likely to survive the impacts of climate change, and this huge commitment brings them much closer to the goal of safeguarding 30% of land and waters by 2030.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

🧑🏻🔬Scientists made a plastic that eats carbon! Chemists at the University of Copenhagen have found an energy efficient way to convert plastic waste into a material that captures carbon emissions, addressing two major global challenges with one solution.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

🏡 Dutch retirement home gives students free accomodation in exchange for supporting residents! The Humanitas Retirement Village has provided huge co-benefits for both groups, from intergenerational friendships and affordable living to skill sharing, improved mental health and social inclusion.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

❌ Plans for a Neo-Nazi festival in Great Yarmouth, UK were CANCELLED after public pressure. Over 34,000 people wrote to the Home Office to raise concerns after campaigning from anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate, resulting in the venue pulling out and the festival being cancelled.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

🐦‍⬛ Natural England celebrate the recovery of 150 species! A £13m Species Recovery Programme has relocated or released over 27,000 plants and animals to successfully support the populations of rare species. The projects have also created or enhanced almost 6,000 acres of wildlife habitats!

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

🇿🇦 Huge win for coastal communities as High Court blocks an offshore drilling project in South Africa! The case was built by local environmental groups and they successfully revoked authorisation for oil giant Shell to drill for new oil and gas due to flawed social and environmental risk assements.

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Sam Bentley @sambentley.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

👩🏼‍🦽 ’Lego Grandma’ builds wheelchair ramps from Lego to make her town more accessible! Rita or ’Lego Grandma’ has been using donated Lego to build free ramps for businesses across her town Hanau in Germany since 2019 - a colourful, creative and sustainable way to make the town more accessible!

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