Investment in energy-from-waste could boost UK GDP by £3 billion a year while diverting 60 million tonnes of waste from landfill, paving the way towards a circular economy, according to a new report by the Environmental Services Association.

A new £3-million plastics recycling partnership aims to tackle Scotland’s packaging waste, which was recently revealed to cost local authorities more than £11 million a year.

The Paper Cup Alliance, which represents UK cup manufacturers, has claimed that a levy on disposable coffee cups could cost the economy £819 million and result in 11,000 job losses in the coffee retail sector.

Today (5 June) is World Environment Day, which this year has the theme ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’, tapping into the growing global consensus against single-use plastics.

The latest collation of waste and resource statistics has been published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), bringing all the UK’s published data on the sector into one place.

Barnet Council is considering scrapping its weekly food waste collections in favour of sending it to incineration along with residual waste, despite the local Conservative Party’s election manifesto containing a promise to maintain the service.

The Scottish Parliament has announced that it will be banning single-use coffee cups in its main buildings in order to cut down on single-use plastic waste.

Iain Gulland, CEO of Zero Waste Scotland, is the new president of the Association of Cities and Regions for Sustainable Resource Management (ACR+), an international network of cities and regions aiming to promote sustainable development.

The programme for CIWM’s two-day policy event (13-14 June) is filling up with high-profile speakers, with Professor Richard Thompson confirmed as keynote speaker for day two.

Scotland has boosted its recycling rate above 60 per cent for the first time, according to new figures from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) released on 29 May.