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Author: DrGevE

Resources Minister Dan Rogerson unmoved by plea from Shadow Minister and EAC

5th December 2014 Posted by

Following Defra’s proposal to levy a five pence charge on single use plastic bags (see previous blog: Bag policy should be binned), the Environmental Audit Committee’s comments on this policy were debated in the House of Commons last week. Chair Joan Walley reiterated the Committee’s conclusion that Defra’s proposals were “unnecessarily complicated” and that, in persisting with exemptions for biodegradable

MEPs push for the Circular Economy Package

18th November 2014 Posted by

The new term of the European Commission has commenced with a Commission Work Programme (CWP) proposed by President Jean-Claude Juncker and First Vice President Franz Timmermans. As many waste-watchers suspected from President Juncker’s cool reception earlier, the Circular Economy Package introduced by outgoing Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik has not received an unqualified green light in the draft CWP. The so-called

The EAC and EFRA reports give Defra and the next Government a useful route map

3rd November 2014 Posted by

The Government’s response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s Inquiry Growing a Circular Economy: Ending the Throwaway Society contains the now-familiar mixture of mild ambition and platitudes that characterised its evidence before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s Inquiry Waste Management in England. There, the Government was taken to task for ‘stepping back’ precisely at a time when vision, a

EFRA Committee reports on state of waste management in England

24th October 2014 Posted by

Defra may have hoped that fences had been mended with the waste management sector since its now infamous letter last November, which announced that it would be “stepping back from areas where there was no sign of market failure”. However, those hopes must surely have been dashed by the publication of the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

If young people are disengaged, whose problem is that?

17th October 2014 Posted by

The headline from a recent YouGov poll examining public attitudes towards recycling was that Britain’s so-called Facebook generation (youth aged 18-24) “are the most apathetic generation when it comes to recycling waste”. Apparently only 57 per cent of 18-24 year olds admitted to being committed recyclers, with 71 per cent thinking recycling was not their personal responsibility. In contrast, the

Make the ‘inner loop’ of reuse the first priority

17th June 2014 Posted by

In articulating what a circular economy should look like, the latest thinking is that it is not just about recycling, where end-of-use articles and products are destroyed in order to recover the materials contained in them. There is a so-called ‘inner loop’ of reuse that should be prioritised first. Products that have come to the end of their ‘first’ life

World Environment Day 2014

5th June 2014 Posted by

The theme of this year’s World Environment Day is “small island developing states” or SIDS, nations that are particularly vulnerable to climate change and rising seas. How might this apply to the UK, and what relevance might this have for the waste and resource management sector?

The shift in the business population reduces the size of the commercial waste market in the UK

6th May 2014 Posted by

Demographic changes in the UK have occurred not just in the general population, but also in the business population. These changes make interesting reading in terms of the future prospects for waste and resource management. Latest figures published by the Department for Business Innovation & Skills in October 2013 estimated that there were 4.9 million private sector businesses in the

Resource event 2014

19th March 2014 Posted by

The recent Resource event at ExCel in London – Realising the Opportunities of a Circular Economy – could not have been better timed. Nobody now questions the benefits that a circular economy can bring, in terms of saving businesses money, and for the wider environmental benefits from using our natural resources more efficiently. As a concept, we can safely say

Bag policy should be binned

11th February 2014 Posted by

The UK has had a penchant for over-complicating environmental legislation. The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (scrapped in 2013), the Carbon Reduction Commitment (supposedly simplified in 2012) and most notoriously, the Electricity Market Reform legislative package – described by one commentator as “a scheme which is liable to disintegrate under the weight of its own complexity” – spring to mind. The

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