The government has launched a review into serious and organised waste crime in England, asking for input from the public about how the growing problem might be tackled.

Investment in energy-from-waste could boost UK GDP by £3 billion a year while diverting 60 million tonnes of waste from landfill, paving the way towards a circular economy, according to a new report by the Environmental Services Association.

The Paper Cup Alliance, which represents UK cup manufacturers, has claimed that a levy on disposable coffee cups could cost the economy £819 million and result in 11,000 job losses in the coffee retail sector.

The latest collation of waste and resource statistics has been published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), bringing all the UK’s published data on the sector into one place.

Barnet Council is considering scrapping its weekly food waste collections in favour of sending it to incineration along with residual waste, despite the local Conservative Party’s election manifesto containing a promise to maintain the service.

UK councils could meet EU recycling targets by reducing residual waste collections and increasing separate food waste services – but at a significant extra cost without government intervention, according to a new report from the Environmental Services Association.

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.

New research finds that The City of London has the biggest illegal rubbish dumping problem in England, with 238 fly-tipping incidents per 1,000 people.

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.