The Chinese Government is set to ban all imports of solid waste from 2021, the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) has learned.
According to the BIR’s contacts in China, the country’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment announced on 30 June in a press conference that it would no longer accept and approve import applications for solid waste from 2021.
The Environmental Services Association (ESA) has expressed concerns over a lack of permitting capacity at the Environment Agency (EA) in response to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement of a significant infrastructure investment in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has launched a consultation on the future of recycling in the country as it seeks to reach a 65 per cent recycling rate by 2035.
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has urged the government to accelerate the transition to a circular economy as part of a Covid-19 recovery plan that prioritises the climate crisis, reiterating its call for a ban on biodegradable waste to landfill by 2025.
Enforcement undertakings accepted by the Environment Agency (EA) for breaches of environmental regulations have totalled £1.65 million for the past six months.
The risk posed to the waste and resources sector by Brexit has increased over the last few months, with the UK falling further behind EU standards and ambition, according to Greener UK’s latest Brexit Risk Tracker.
Garden waste collections may be made free by the passing of the Environment Bill to improve consistency in recycling, says Environment Secretary George Eustice.
Plans to include fuels made from non-renewable materials in the EU’s renewable energy plans could undermine recycling progress, according to a new policy briefing by Zero Waste Europe, Bellona Europe and Rethink Plastic.
Most classes of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in the UK must now be classed as hazardous waste or containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs) unless it can be proved otherwise, according to updated guidance by the Environment Agency (EA).
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) announced yesterday (8 June) that any methodology for calculating the 2020 waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) compliance fee will take the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic into account.
A coalition of trade organisations has written to the Environment Secretary George Eustice (1 June) pressing for a ‘total ban’ on oxodegradable plastics.
BBIA Managing Director David Newman looks at how Italy’s new EPR scheme for compostable packaging will work and what lessons it can provide the UK as it revises its packaging EPR system.
Environmental NGO Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) has called for the introduction of a Material Recovery and Biological Treatment (MRBT) system as a ‘bridge strategy’ for managing residual waste in a circular economy.
The Scottish Parliament has voted to approve regulations that will establish a deposit return scheme (DRS) for single-use drinks containers in Scotland.
A new study released last week (8 May) supported by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) suggests that regulatory barriers and technological ‘lock-in’ are hampering plastic packaging recycling efforts.
The Environment Agency (EA) has released two further Covid-19 regulatory position statements (RPS) for waste operators concerning the temporary storage of waste at unpermitted sites and the temporary storage of incinerator bottom ash aggregate (IBAA) during the crisis.
The Environment Agency has released two new Covid-19 Regulatory Position Statements removing the need for physical signatures on waste transfer documentation and removing penalties for packaging producers that were unable to register with a compliance scheme during the crisis.
The Environment Agency (EA) has released a regulatory position statement that allows municipal waste incinerators to accept Covid-19 infectious waste without varying their environmental permits.
The Environment Agency (EA) has announced that waste storage limits on permitted waste sites can be ‘temporarily’ exceeded if Covid-19 restrictions mean that waste cannot be removed from those sites.
The Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) Forum has published its finalised guidance on reducing the risk of Covid-19 in the waste management sector.
HMRC has announced a degree of ‘operational flexibility’ for landfill site operators for Landfill Tax operators in light of the Covid-19 outbreak as rate increases to £94.15 per tonne for 2020/21.
