Band say carbon emissions for vinyl production will be reduced by 85% thanks to new method, as they announce 10th studio album

Coldplay are aiming to make the most ecologically sustainable vinyl record yet, for their newly announced album Moon Music.

Each 140g vinyl copy of Moon Music, released 4 October, will be manufactured from nine plastic bottles recovered from consumer waste. For a special “notebook edition”, 70% of the plastic has been intercepted by the environmental nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup from Rio Las Vacas, Guatemala, preventing it from entering the Gulf of Honduras and the Atlantic Ocean.

• Yates finishes second to Almeida in final time trial
• Briton edges out UAE-Team Emirates colleague in GC

Britain’s Adam Yates held on to win the Tour de Suisse after finishing second in Sunday’s closing time-trial stage.

Yates’s closest rival was his UAE-Team Emirates colleague, João Almeida, who was fastest on the 15.7km route from Aigle to Villars-sur-Ollon. The Portuguese rider finished in 33 minutes and 23 seconds, but his nine-second advantage over Yates on the day was not enough to take the title.

Helmet-wearing is rare in this nation of bike riders but authorities are pushing people to think again

When 42-year-old Myrthe Boss gets on her bike to go shopping in the Dutch town of Ede, she pops on a helmet. This act, considered essential in many countries, marks Boss out as something of a radical in the Netherlands, where helmet-wearing is rare.

Now, however, faced with rising number of traffic deaths linked in particular to older riders and e-bikes, the Dutch government and provinces – not to mention neurologists like Boss – are pushing for cyclists to think again.

Repair business is booming as owners complain of their units needing to be replaced up to five times

Is it the UK’s seemingly incessant rain? A poor design? Or maybe the way they are being ridden or cleaned? Why are so many owners of electric bicycles complaining that their motors need to be replaced so often?

Some mountain bike owners with fourth-generation Bosch electric motors describe how they had four or five – yes five – replacement motors fitted during the two-year warranty period. Owners of other brands say theirs have only lasted 800 to 1,000 miles.

• Chris Boardman gets CBE as does Graeme Souness
• Katherine Sciver-Brunt and Sandy Lyle earn OBEs

The British cyclist Mark Cavendish, whose fearlessness, raw power, and insatiable thirst for success has earned him 164 professional victories in a glittering career, has been knighted in the king’s birthday honours.

The 39-year-old, who is known as the Manx Missile because of his speed and aggressiveness in sprint finishes, has also won 34 Tour de France stages, putting him joint first on the all-time list together with Eddy Merckx.

• Three-stage race will not take place in London next year
• ‘Alternative dates at this late stage are impossible’

Organisers of the Ford RideLondon Classique have described cycling governing body the UCI’s decision to move next year’s race as a sad day for women’s cycling.

This year’s Classique was a three-stage professional race culminating in London during a weekend cycling festival also featuring a mass participation amateur ride. However, a change to the UCI’s 2025 calendar means the Classique will not be held in London next year.

From properties close to picturesque cycling routes to a London new-build, these homes will tempt city dwellers into the saddle this National Bike Week

Scott Peden, whose partner and two children died after battery exploded, calls for compulsory regulation

A man who narrowly survived an ebike battery fire that killed his partner and two children says he is tormented by grief and guilt but determined to fight to change the law to avoid similar tragedies.

Scott Peden, 31, was placed in an induced coma for a month after suffering 15% internal burns when he tried to wrestle his burning ebike out of his Cambridge flat last June. He also smashed his heel in three places jumping from his bedroom after the battery exploded.

Enlarge / All these pieces more or less pop apart after a brief chemical treatment. (credit: Israel Sebastian.)

For years, the arguments against renewable power focused on its high costs. But as the price of wind and solar plunged, the arguments shifted. Suddenly, concerns about the waste left behind when solar panels hit end-of-life became so common that researchers at the US's National Renewable Energy Lab felt compelled to publish a commentary in Nature Physics debunking them.

Part of the misinformation is pure nonsense. The primary ingredients of most panels are silicon, aluminum, and silver, none of which is a major environmental threat. Solar panels also have a useful lifespan of decades, and the vast majority of those in existence are less than 10 years old, so waste hasn't even become much of a problem yet. And, even once these panels age out, recycling techniques are available.

Perhaps the only realistic concern is that existing recycling technologies rely on nitric acid and can produce some toxic waste. But a group of researchers from Wuhan University have figured out an alternative means of recycling that avoids the production of toxic waste and is more energy-efficient as a bonus.

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Enlarge / These minerals were once part of lithium-ion battery cells and will be once again. (credit: Redwood Materials)

Battery recycling company Redwood Materials will start recycling battery production scrap from General Motors' new line of electric vehicles. This morning, Redwood announced that it is working with Ultium Cells, the joint venture between GM and LG Energy Solutions that makes Ultium battery cells. Approximately 10,000 tons a year of production scrap will be sent from the Ultium Cells plants in Ohio and Tennessee to Redwood's site in northern Nevada.

Redwood was started by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel in 2017 and in recent years has announced partnerships with multiple OEMs, including Ford, Volvo, Volkswagen, and now General Motors. Last year, the US Department of Energy approved a $2 billion loan to Redwood as part of its Advanced Technology Manufacturing program (which also funded Ultium Cells).

Redwood says that its hydrometallurgy facility is now a "commercial-scale source of lithium supply," the first to come online in the United States for decades. The facility also produces raw nickel and cobalt from battery scrap.

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