Funding of £400,000 from the Northern Irish carrier bag levy is to be made available to support small-scale environmental projects aimed at improving the local environment and boosting civic pride, ahead of a review of the charge next year.

Celebrity chef and waste campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has accused brands of ‘greenwashing’ responses to the burning issue of coffee cup waste, criticising in particular a campaign to increase high street recycling of takeaway cups.

Funding of £1.5 million is to be made available for businesses and research institutions working in the bioeconomy in Scotland to support innovative work that will help deliver circular economy growth.

The potential for a post-Brexit shake-up of the UK’s packaging waste compliance system has been investigated in a report commissioned by the Environmental Services Association.

LARAC, the body representing local authority recycling officers, has joined the board of OPRL, the UK’s packaging recycling label scheme – the third industry body to buy into the scheme in the past year.

A new social experiment in Manchester is to test a series of bins to see if the collection of coffee cups could be effectively recycled into new products.

A new set of guidelines on recycling is hoping to clear up once and for all what materials can and can’t be recycled at the kerbside in an attempt to remove the confusion holding back recycling the UK.

Councils could save around £300 million every year if producers of the most littered products were made to pay levies towards their clean-up, says the Environmental Services Association (ESA).

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.

Norwich City Council could ban the use of single-use plastic products at council buildings as a way of leading the charge to become a ‘pioneer plastic-free city’.