How recycling could make the UK a world leader in electric vehicles
The UK car industry is on edge, with the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders saying that Brexit uncertainty is threatening investments in Britain’s car industry. On top of this, there has been the long wait for the government’s Road to Zero strategy, which will set out how it proposes to reduce emissions from transport. The future of the sector seems to be in limbo, a situation that is unlikely to be attractive to any car manufacturers thinking of setting up shop in the UK. Read more
UK recycling has a problem. Over the years, we have become reliant on the Chinese market to take our low quality recycling. But China doesn’t want our waste anymore. In fact, it says it no longer wants any “foreign garbage”, as shipments of low quality material from countries like the UK have “polluted China’s environment seriously.” 
It’s been almost six months since Michael Gove made an 
Hatred is quite a strong emotion to feel for inanimate evidence notes intended to show that a company has paid towards recycling its packaging, but bear with me and I’ll explain what’s got me so wound up.
Freedom’s Sentinel, Operation Red Dragon, Liberty Shield, National Sword and Green Quest. They all sound like the names given to military interventions of recent years. And, in fact, they all are, apart from one, which is a Chinese government programme aiming to improve the quality of recycling. And, no, it’s not Green Quest (a short lived American operation investigating terrorist financing sources). Rather, the programme seeking to prevent imports of poor quality recyclates is National Sword, a surprisingly aggressive title for such an environmentally beneficial endeavour.
This post is by Richard Gower, senior associate for economics and policy at Tearfund. This post first appeared on 
In 2013, China sent shock waves through the recycling world in the west by launching Operation Green Fence, a campaign that rejected at least 800,000 tonnes of substandard recyclable waste imports and withdrew 247 import licenses. This focused minds in the UK, because we have grown dependent on exports of low quality recyclate, which our producer responsibility system accidentally encourages. Unfortunately, no lasting action was taken to fix the problem, and now things look set to get much worse. 
The problem of glittery Christmas waste unexpectedly made the front page of the 
s post first appeared on 
This post is by Thomas Fischer, head of the Circular Economy Programme at 