Apps targeting food and DIY waste and a CO2–absorbing urban tree are among the innovations chosen as finalists for this year’s Green Alley Award.

Parents on Anglesey will no longer have to provide a birth certificate to receive nappy collections, after the council loosened its criteria following feedback from residents condemning the measure.

Waste created by students decamping from their halls has been addressed by a partnership between the University of St Andrews and The Furniture Recycling Group.

The Labour Party ‘will embrace the circular economy’ and become the ‘Party for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’, Shadow Environment Secretary Rachael Maskell told the party’s annual conference.

The ‘Circularety’ platform, developed by ecosurety, gives packaging producers the chance to invest their obligated payments in specific recycling projects.

Packaging compliance scheme Valpak has become the latest funding partner in the MetalMatters programme, a scheme to help councils boost the capture rates for metal packaging in kerbside recycling.

Philip Morton is to retire as CEO of compliance scheme REPIC at the end of the year, with former Viridor COO Mark Burrows-Smith taking his place.

Two more councils, Powys and Slough, are to turn to in-house waste services after reviews found that council-run operations offer significant savings.

Scotland has edged closer to overtaking England’s recycling performance, after official statistics recorded a recycling rate of 44.3 per cent for 2015.

German dissension over recycling targets and methodology could risk further delay to the adoption of the Circular Economy Package.