The European Commission has proposed a full ban on some of the most commonly used and littered disposable plastic products in Europe, including single-use cutlery, plates, drinks stirrers, straws, cotton buds and sticks for balloons.

The final legislative hurdle to creating a more resource efficient Europe has been overcome after the EU Council approved the EU’s Circular Economy Package (CEP) in Brussels on Tuesday.

UK compliance schemes for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) have welcomed the government’s response to its consultation on proposed amendments to the UK WEEE Regulations 2013, with actions to be taken forward including a more equitable sharing of the costs of WEEE collection.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has presented the final draft of his London Environment Strategy to the London Assembly for consideration, with targets such as becoming a zero-carbon city and reducing the capital’s food waste by 50 per cent by 2030 among the proposals in the revised document.

The UK’s food waste data, setting out how much food is consumed, recycled and wasted across the country, has been restated by WRAP using new international standards of measurement, resulting in a reduction in the figure for overall household food waste.

A government inquiry into the effectiveness of the RHI, designed to boost the uptake of renewable and low-carbon heating, found that the scheme has not lived up to initial expectations or provided value for money.

John Hamill of GH Consulting has been handed a 21-month jail sentence after paying no income tax for nine years.

In a bid to reduce its plastic footprint, the UK Parliament has announced a series of measures aiming to ‘virtually eliminate single-use avoidable plastics’ from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords by 2019.

A report from environmental think tank Green Alliance says the UK government needs to reduce the carbon output from the process of making and using products in order to meet its climate targets.

The UK currently lacks the infrastructure capacity needed to treat all of its residual waste domestically, but how much will we need in the future? As the debate heats up, Resource attempts to weigh up both sides.