Newcastle City Council is looking for ‘radical’ solutions to the city’s waste management situation after appointing a team of industry experts to review all aspects of the waste process.

Wales is closer than ever to reaching its 2025 recycling, reuse and composting target of 70 per cent, with the latest government statistics for the 12 months to September 2016 reporting a rate of 62 per cent, a four per cent increase on 2015.

Keep Britain Tidy has called for England to follow Wales in adopting a collections blueprint to bring about the next step-change in recycling.

The Waste Industry Safety and Health Forum has launched a new website to provide health and safety guidance to local authorities and businesses in the waste management industry.

The UK needs to have a national debate on future recycling targets to establish a framework for the resource sector post-Brexit, says the Environmental Industries Commission, although other commentators have suggested the matter might not be in the UK’s hands.

Planning applications for ‘environmentally-friendly’ waste management sites have dropped by 20 per cent in the past year as local authorities feel the squeeze from continuing budget cuts, according to commercial law firm EMW.

Environmental officers have been deployed wearing body cameras in the London Borough of Wandsworth to help tackle littering as part of a new pilot project.

Falkirk Council’s ‎Ross Fenwick and Robin Baird say that now is the time to challenge recycling behaviour and take a step towards the sustainable world we keep talking about.

Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson says residents that alert the council of fly-tippers and those not recycling properly should be rewarded, even suggesting that whistleblowers should receive refunds on their council tax.

Shares in construction firm Interserve have fallen by a third after the board announced that the costs of quitting the energy-from-waste business are more than double those originally expected.