The government says it wants to “streamline planning rules” to kickstart the building of three “new towns” and a new environment secretary has promised to make DEFRA a department of growth. So is nature getting squeezed out?

ENDS Report’s deputy editor Tess Colley reveals her key takehomes from the Labour Party conference in Liverpool with Eco Chamber host James Agyepong-Parsons.

The team also spotlights an £80m unpaid tax bill rising from the notorious Walley’s Quarry landfill, PFAS’s 1,100°C kill zone and fears that national park protections are at risk of being watered down.

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Every week, the ENDS team enters the ECO Chamber to discuss the UK’s biggest green news stories and bring you up to speed on the latest developments in environmental policy.

This week, ENDS Report’s deputy editor Tess Colley speaks with news editor Pippa Neil.

After obtaining never-before-seen documents, ENDS Report can reveal that the chemical manufacturer, AGC Chemicals Europe Ltd, is making products containing the banned and carcinogenic forever chemical PFOA, and allowing it to be released into the air.

The company says that production of the chemical is inadvertent and within regulations – but it is on-going – and Pippa has uncovered that AGC has known about the risk posed to its workers for almost 20 years.

PLUS: a Reform UK-led council has dropped its climate change emergency declaration on climate skeptic grounds; Natural England has pulled the plug on its hen harrier conservation project and the EA has come out swinging against accusations that it is being pressured to waive through construction projects.

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Every week, the ENDS team enters the ECO Chamber to discuss the UK’s biggest green news stories and bring you up to speed on the latest developments in environmental policy.

This week, in a departure from business as usual, ECO Chamber host James Agyepong-Parsons sits down with the creators of Boy Wasted – a Smoke Trail production for ENDS Report and De Groene Amsterdammer, developed with the support of JournalismFund Europe.

The investigation started with a photo: a concrete yard with piles of plastic, and lying on the ground was the body of a boy - grotesquely ripped apart.

Who was he? And what really happened to him?

All three episodes of Boy Wasted can be streamed on the Eco Chamber podcast feed now.

In this bonus episode, we find out how this story came about and what we as listeners can do next.

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