A round-up of news from the waste and resources sector, including new appointments at Biffa and Cromwell Polythene, and the opening of a new EfW facility in Buckinghamshire.

Green City Solutions, a German start-up creating urban air purification installations, has beaten off five other circular companies to win this year’s Green Alley Award.

Terrifying news: 15 million carved pumpkins go uneaten in the UK during Halloween each year. Hubbub and Unilever have relaunched their #PumpkinRescue campaign to get people eating their glowing decorations.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has partnered with the International Baccalaureate to work on embedding circular economy teaching into the IB curriculum.

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.

European Environment Ministers have been urged to keep faith with ‘ambitious’ recycling targets for Europe after opposition emerged from countries including Germany and the UK.

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.

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.