A 13-year-old schoolboy is slowly capturing the eco-ideas of his generation and asking his parent's generation to open the doors to new ideas to reduce plastic.

A stoush is looming in the multi-billion dollar recycling industry with the NSW government expected to make permanent a ban on the use of organic waste as fertiliser for farming.

38 landholders will enter into new conservation pacts that will protect more than 9300 hectares of environmentally significant land, including koala habitat.

The British ban on elephant ivory  is killing hippos, conservationists say, as poachers and hunters take advantage of a loophole in the new law.

Technology developed in NSW to convert waste plastics into reusable materials such as fuel  could be commercialised overseas or interstate first because of "massive" hurdles facing such firms in the state, the co-inventor of the pioneering process says.