A deposit return scheme for drinks containers will be introduced in England later this year subject to the results of a consultation, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirmed today (28 March).

The Advisory Committee on Packaging (ACP) has gained three new members representing the retail, glass and waste management sectors, including SUEZ UK’s Technical Director Stuart Hayward-Higham.

Packaging company DS Smith believes it can recycle all the UK’s coffee cup waste, which amounts to 2.5 billion cups, at its paper mill in Kent.

Shops and businesses across London have signed up to take part in a trial scheme that offers free tap water ‘refills’ to members of the public as part of the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s efforts to tackle single-use plastic waste.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement of a consultation on how the tax system can be used to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics has received widespread acclaim from the waste and resources industry following the Spring Statement yesterday (13 March).

The River Tame, which flows through the Greater Manchester area was found by geographers at the University of Manchester to have a microplastics concentration of 517,000 particles per square metre.

Waste and recycled material is given a new life as art in a show at GroundWork Gallery in King’s Lynn, the UK’s only gallery to specialise in art and the environment.

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.

Progress on the EU’s Plastics Strategy continues unabated as Europe’s environment ministers reached agreement on the content of the strategy at a meeting of the Environment Council on Monday (5 March).

China has announced the launch of a new customs crackdown on the smuggling of foreign waste, entitled ‘Blue Sky 2018’, which will run from March to December 2018.