6th October 2017
Innovation in the waste management sector is alive and kicking. Such was the take-home message from the ‘Hackathon’ organised by London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) in collaboration with RWM and industry partner SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, with a prize co-sponsored by LWARB and SUEZ. Hackathons are, according to one definition, “creativity marathons. Thoughts become things. Attendees work to
23rd June 2017
The publication of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, converting all extant EU laws into UK law, again brings into focus the likely fate of the EU’s Circular Economy Package (CEP) post-Brexit. All guesswork and supposition of course, since a forward-looking waste management vision and plan for the UK is conspicuously lacking at the moment. Incorporation of the CEP into UK
14th April 2017
This is the spring 201 legislation update, in which we look at a number of key pieces of legislation, government and industry news, and what it means for our customers. Industrial Strategy: Government green paper The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is consulting on a green paper on the UK’s Industrial Strategy. Entitled Building our Industrial Strategy, the
8th December 2016
The Autumn 2016 legislation update is the first update post Brexit. We look at a number of key pieces of legislation, government and industry news, and what it means for our customers. Cutting paper cup waste The Foodservice Packaging Association (FPA) and the Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group (PCRRG) have launched the ‘Paper Cup Manifesto’. This voluntary, industry-wide initiative
25th May 2016
Each quarter, the Source legislation update compiles a round-up of emerging policy and legislation, from the UK and EU, which could have an impact on recycling and waste management practices. During the first quarter of 2016, the European Commission published a major study assessing both the legislation and practice of separate collection systems for waste across the 28 EU member
13th November 2015
The news that Defra is to face a budget reduction of 30 per cent over the next four years will not come as much of a surprise to most waste-watchers if that departmental cut is salami-sliced across to Rory Stewart’s waste and resources team. Given the low-key approach to waste management that Defra has taken over the past few years,
5th December 2014
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
3rd November 2014
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
24th October 2014
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
6th May 2014
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
