Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond is set to announce a public consultation on a plastics tax, along with a £20-million innovation fund to develop alternatives to the problem material.

The government has offered “warm words” but “no real action” today (9 March) in response to the report by the Environmental Audit Committee on disposable coffee cup waste, according to the committee’s Chair Mary Creagh.

New waste crime powers have been approved by the National Assembly for Wales to prevent access to problem waste sites and force operators to remove illegally-dumped waste.

The UK’s plastic packaging recycling rate could be 9-10 percentage points lower than official figures, according to a report from Eunomia Research & Consulting.

In the wake of concerns from the Environment Agency that hazardous waste wood is being wrongly classified, the Wood Recyclers Association has published a best practice guide for reporting hazardous waste.

Collection targets for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) for 2017 have been missed, according to the latest statistics from the Environment Agency (EA).

The UK’s annual lamp recycling rate for 2017 has increased to 48.5 per cent, up from 47.5 per cent in 2016, according to data released by the Environment Agency yesterday (1 March).

EU ambassadors have endorsed the provisional agreement on the four legislative proposals that make up the Circular Economy Package, including a target of a 60 per cent municipal recycling rate.

The Welsh Government has approved £7.5 million of funding to help local authorities further improve recycling services, just days after Wales was once again revealed to be the UK’s best recycling nation.

EU-wide legislation on single-use plastic is on the cards for this summer, according to comments by the European Commission’s Vice President Frans Timmermans.