Environment

In September last year, a monster was discovered in London’s sewers.Weighing about 130 metric tons and measuring 250 meters in length — longer than the city’s Tower Bridge — a congealed mass of fat, oil, wet tissues, condoms and diapers was found blocking a section of the wastewater network during a routine inspection.

Residents in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture, filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to prevent a local public association from burning radiation-tainted waste generated by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis.

The Environment Ministry has decided to obligate retailers including supermarkets and convenience stores to charge fees for plastic checkout bags or provide loyalty points to shoppers who bring their own bags, officials said Friday.

A summer of typhoons and flooding has put the issues of severe weather, global warming and climate change mitigation domestically and internationally back on top of Japan’s political agenda.

A plan to filter bacteria from the water around Odaiba Beach Park in Tokyo Bay was announced Friday by 2020 Olympic and Paralympic organizers and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.