Thank you to BBC File on 4 Investigates journos Anna Meisel and Paul Kenyon and the rest of the brilliant BBC team who worked with us.

And thank you to the workers and villagers in India who campaigned so hard and bravely told us their stories.

We're thrilled to have won the Society of Editors Media Freedom Award 2025 for environment journalism!

Our investigation into the millions of UK tyres being dumped in India - and boiled in highly dangerous conditions - with our ace
BBC co-reporters had widespread impact.

And since we're talking awards... we've been on a roll recently! 🏆

On Tuesday, we won the Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism for another investigation into Russia's shadow fleet, alongside over 40 collaborators from all around Europe.

We're very proud to be shortlisted in the British Journalism Awards alongside many other excellent journalists.

Here's a quick 🧵 of the stories included in our submission:

We're very pleased to have been shortlisted for the Society of Editors Media Freedom Awards 2025 for our story 'Burning Rubber: the poisonous afterlife of waste tyres', in partnership with the BBC.

We're delighted to have won in the 'Conflict & Climate Change' category at this year's Covering Climate Now awards with a project in partnership with our colleagues at Le Monde 🏆

Despite it all, Bamfo built Nkosoo Waste Management (“progress” in Twi), where she shelters young waste pickers. “It is important work we do,” she says. “We clean the city.”

Projects like the Asase Foundation, funded by the World Bank, turn sachets into pellets and “plastic lumber”. But picker leaders say these schemes sideline their work leaving the real problem—unchecked plastic production—untouched. One researcher calls credits a “game of greenwashing”.

The World Bank’s answer? Plastic credits. Companies buy offsets and the money is used to fund recycling projects, so that polluters can claim to be “plastic neutral.” But Bamfo says it hasn’t slowed the flood of waste—or helped the waste pickers scraping by on cents per kilo.

When Bamfo first started, neighbours called her a “vulture” and even a “witch.” Her family cut her off. Today she leads 8,000 workers in the Accra Tricycle Association. “I was an orphan like these children once,” she says nodding towards the young pickers scattered across her yard.

At dawn in Accra, Ghana, Lydia Bamfo (51) sets out to collect plastic waste. For 25 years she’s battled the tide of rubbish overwhelming her city. Now she says the World Bank’s “solution” has done nothing to help workers like her. 🧵

Then Indian buyers pretend to recycle the tyres, but in many cases flog them on to illegal pyrolysis plants.

Then the tyres reach the final destination: unsafe tyre pyrolysis plants. We spoke to people who know children who have died inside them.

Our graphic here explains the journey of the tyre:

Garages are charging drivers an 'environmental disposal fee' for a tyre, but then flog it on extremely cheaply to buyers so they make a bigger profit.

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Our analysis of the plastic credits market found that most credits are awarded to projects that burn plastic.

In total, existing plastic credit schemes have burned or plan to burn 84,289 tonnes of plastic.

A company called Tontoton transports plastic waste to be burned here in the kiln, saying it would otherwise end up in the ocean.

It then sells 'plastic credits' to major companies.

Scientists said burning plastic would produce cancer-causing dioxins and other toxic substances.

🧵Twice a day, sirens sound in the shadow of Touk Meas Mountain in Kampot province, Cambodia.

"We're often coughing," said Pheara, who lives nearby.

Here, a cement kiln producing hazardous emissions is supposedly at the heart of the global fight against plastic pollution.

We looked into plastic offsetting, which major plastic producers are touting as a way of solving the pollution crisis.

Our analysis shows that most plastic credits are awarded for burning plastic.

Seafarers dread working on the creaking, unsafe shadow fleet that ships Russian oil.

Along with partners at @ftm.nl and Süddeutsche Zeitung, we investigated the companies putting them there — and found some in troubling locations.

Late last year, we reported that Dawn Meats, Europe's biggest supplier of lamb, could break emissions laws with its new incinerator in rural Ireland.

Now, the Irish EPA has acted, amending the licence to make clear to the company the rules it must follow.