Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has called on the government to focus on reducing all single-use packaging, rather than switching to alternative materials such as compostable plastic packaging.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has published new Material Flow 2025 reports, predicting the likelihood of reaching national and European recycling targets.

The Scottish Government has submitted legislation for the introduction of its deposit return scheme (DRS) for beverage containers, with the scheme currently slated for a 1 April 2021 commencement date.

Recycling and waste management company Viridor has published its 2019 Recycling Index, announcing that from next year it will be processing all of its plastic waste domestically.

The 12 winners of the UK’s largest grant fund to boost paper cup recycling, The Cup Fund, have been announced, sharing grants of between £50,000 and £100,000.

A new report from textile reuse charity TRAID has revealed that two thirds of textile bank users are unaware that many clothing banks are run by commercial operators.

A new accreditation standard, TRUST (Trader Recycling Universal Standard), has been established for recyclers who trade with charity shops, to ensure that collectors meet health and safety, legal and environmental guidelines.

Resources Minister Therese Coffey has been appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions following Amber Rudd’s departure from the Cabinet, leaving no minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs directly responsible for resources and waste.

Ennomotive has launched an engineering competition to find new ways of reprocessing waste mining materials into glass.

Environment Agency household WEEE collection figures for the second quarter of 2019 show that the UK is falling far behind its WEEE collection target for 2019.