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The Ellen MacArthur Foundation report – Growth Within: A circular economy vision for a competitive Europe

10th July 2015 Posted by

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation continues its sterling efforts to mainstream the circular economy concept in Europe with a report titled Growth Within: A circular economy vision for a competitive Europe. Analysing three European sectors — food, mobility, and the built environment — the report identifies their current inefficiencies in terms of material use and wastage. It also examines strategies to

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

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

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

Picking winners

14th January 2014 Posted by

Two years ago, SITA UK published a document called ‘Driving Green Growth’ , which aimed to help Government understand the potential of the waste and resource recovery industry. We listed the potential opportunities, which included: Investment of £20-£25 billion 84,000 direct and indirect new jobs Millions of tonnes of resources recovered and reinserted into the economy A 10 per cent

Guidance on weekly rubbish collections

9th January 2014 Posted by

Waste managers are likely to read the Department for Communities and Local Goverment’s (DCLG) recent Guidance on Weekly Rubbish Collections with, at best, a sense of disbelief. In my view, the response of professional and trade bodies to date has actually been mystifyingly polite. Firstly, the document doesn’t provide “guidance … on how councils can and should deliver weekly rubbish

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