Back in March 2018, the government won kudos for reversing its opposition to tough recycling targets included in the EU’s Circular Economy Package. “I want the UK to lead the way in driving global resource efficiency and that’s why, as well as backing the EU’s Circular Economy Package, we have committed to publishing a new resources and waste strategy in 2018,” then Environment Minister Thérèse Coffey said. Read more
Last week, Policy Connect released a report, supported by the cross party Sustainable Resource Forum, looking at waste management and the shift to net zero. It contains several assumptions worth challenging (not least the opening statement that half of England’s waste isn’t recyclable, which is internally contradicted by the statement that the country can recycle 60 per cent of its waste by 2030). But I’ll concentrate here on its main recommendation: that England “should move towards a Scandinavian style approach to residual waste”. Read more
This post was first published by Business Green.
Earlier this year, Green Alliance launched a report called Fixing the system. It highlighted that, in response to considerable public pressure, the government was tackling plastic pollution, but only in a piecemeal fashion. Read more
Over the past few months of upheaval, Covid-19 has succinctly highlighted many shortcomings of what used to pass for the ‘normal’ functioning of economy and society. It’s made many rethink what they value and what they expect the state to value, protect and promote. While it remains unclear what changes will stick and what greater changes are coming down the line, it seems inevitable that the pandemic will permanently alter how we live and how the economy functions. Read more
This post is by Janet Gunter and Ugo Vallauri, co-founders of the Restart Project.
A new poll by YouGov shows that more people in Britain would like to repair their smartphones (47 per cent), as opposed to those who would rather get a new one (45 per cent). For laptops, a strong majority (58 per cent) would prefer to repair rather than replace. Read more
This post is by Olivia Webb, iFixit‘s outreach coordinator.
If you bought it, you own it. That means you should be able to open it and fix it without retribution from the manufacturer. Right? Read more
Our highly globalised, just in time food supply chain has come under considerable scrutiny since the coronavirus pandemic pushed the system to its limits. The shock of seeing empty shelves in a modern, wealthy, westernised country has led many to question the resilience of the UK’s food system. We can expect this topic to be debated long after the immediate crisis is over, when we begin to (hopefully) build back better. Read more
It is nearly ten years since my book The secret life of stuff was published. Those ten years have seen some big changes to the planetary agenda, and the book might have had an even warmer reception had it been published now. But there are aspects of what I was trying to illuminate a decade ago that are strangely still under the radar. Read more
This post is by Nick Eyre, director of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS).
The government frequently boasts that the UK has broken the link between carbon emissions and economic growth. Since 1970, the economy has trebled in size, whilst emissions have fallen by about a third. Read more
Last week, on behalf of the Circular Economy Task Force, we published an insight into what the grocery sector is really doing about plastic. The report, Plastic promises, has generated considerable amounts of attention and debate, which is gratifying to see. It is especially heartening that it seems to have (finally) got people talking in earnest about why we need to address more than just plastic use and waste if we want a sustainable packaging system. Read more
