Category: <span>Outreach</span>

A word to our funders – make sure your views are known

EBNet’s Director Prof Sonia Heaven will give a short talk on our Network to representatives of BBSRC in Southampton on 3 June 2026. This is an opportunity to share your thoughts on key issues for Environmental Biotechnology, and/or ideas for this and other UKRI-funded Networks. We plan to include preliminary …

Dr Clare Lukehurst – a Champion of Anaerobic Digestion

Dr Clare Lukehurst has recently been recognised by an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Although the text is behind a paywall, it’s very gratifying to see her remarkable life and contributions acknowledged in this way. Dr Lukehurst acted for many years as the UK representative for IEA …

Coccus Pocus 2025: results of the microbiology-inspired ‘Scary story’ competition

Last Autumn saw Round 7 of Coccus Pocus, the annual scary story competition for Halloween. The 2025 competition was supported by the Microbiology Society as part of its Knocking Out AMR campaign: the competition organiser Dr Georgios Efthimiou is himself a Microbiology Society Champion. Entrants are asked to write a …

UK Fertilising Product Regulations: consultation on regulatory reform  

The UK Government, including Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland branches, is running a public consultation and call for evidence on the impact of proposed modifications to existing legislation in the UK Fertilising Product Regulations (UK FPR). The online consultation covers rules on manufacturing and marketing of fertilisers, but does not …

Wastewater Treatment Works – are site visits getting easier?

EBNet has been commenting for some time now about the difficulty of arranging visits to water and wastewater treatment facilities, even for organised groups. Several factors may account for this, from pressure on staff time to concerns about health and safety and awareness of the sector’s poor public image. It’s …

EMISI Sanitation Emissions project: Final Dissemination webinar available here

The EMISI Final Dissemination Webinar, which presents key findings and reflections from the Emissions Measurement to Improve Sanitation in Indonesia (EMISI) project, is now available on EBNet’s YouTube channel, by kind request of the EMISI Project team. EMISI activities involved extensive work on the direct empirical measurement of nitrous oxide …

A Dirty Business?

Reactions to Dirty Business, the new Channel 4 Docudrama on sewage pollution, suggest the UK water industry is in for another heavy battering.  After the 3-episode series aired on 23 Feb 2026 it has received extensive coverage on all major press and media outlets, from BBC News to Woman and …

Our final Green Stories picks – January 2026

The final set of stories chosen from our Green Stories: Microbes to the Rescue anthology, equivalent to about 30 mins in the Audiobook version. The anthology is also available as a free eBook on the Resources page. This month’s selections are: Chapter 10:  Microworlds by Griffen Alexander, South Africa – an …

PFAS monitoring and removal – and PFAS WG news

This month, the EU introduced mandatory systematic monitoring requirements for per and polyfluoroalkyl-substances (PFAS) in drinking water, aimed at promoting compliance with new limit values in the revised EU Drinking Water Directive (2024/2184). The new limits are 0.5 µg/L for total PFAS and 0.1 µg/L for the sum of 20 …