| The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) has announced the 2016 winners of the association’s annual Excellence Awards. San Jose, California-based Zanker Recycling was awarded the Recycling System Gold Award, the top honor, for its Demolition Recycling Operation. Silver was awarded to California-based Athens Services’ Sun Valley Mixed Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). Both systems were designed, engineered, manufactured and installed by Bulk Handling Systems (BHS).

| The European Commission is considering a deal for the steel sector in exchange for granting China the coveted Market Economy Status (MES). According to European Aluminium, this approach ignores the enormous Chinese overcapacities in industries like aluminium and creates unfair distortions on the EU market.

| Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has stated that e-waste laws in Australia needs to be strengthened to better handle rising e-waste volumes in the country.

| Researchers have developed a material that contains shredded rubber from used tires for use in the subballast layer of train tracks. The researchers are from Spain's Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), rail firm AZVI and the University of Seville. The material, combined with crushed stone, has already been used to good effect in asphalt mixtures and roadside embankments. However, its use in the rail sector is relatively unexplored.

| Van Gansewinkel and Shanks want to form a new European waste collection and recycling alliance. To this end, both companies have signed a preliminary agreement.

| Sources have said that Dutch buyout group Waterland Private Equity Investments B.V. has initiated talks to sell the nation's waste management group Attero for about €1 billion. Attero processes 40% of Dutch household waste and describes itself as a leading player in creating energy from waste.

| Mary Ann Yule, president of HP Canada, has said that Canada will need to embrace circular economy if it wants to maintain its position as the leader in recycling.

| Singapore's Minister for Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli said that the country's National Environment Agency will implement mandatory packaging requirements within the coming three to five years in a bid to reduce packaging waste.

| The 2016 edition of Electronics & Cars Recycling, the electronics and cars recycling conference in the Asia-Pacific region, will explore the considerable challenges and bountiful opportunities in these sectors.

| Ian Cheshire, chairman of U.K.-based retailer Debenhams P.L.C. and Business in the Community environment leadership team, has said that British businesses must address environmental challenges and adopt circular economy principals.

| There are millions of unused and obsolete handphones with Malaysians that are posing a real threat to the environment. Several Malaysians just throw e-waste such as mobile phones and discarded tablets into the dustbins, and they end up in landfills where the minerals and materials inside can leak out.

| Sensor-based sorting specialist Tomra Sorting has been chosen by Monoworld Recycling as the technology partner for a new £9 million plastics recycling facility in Rushden, Northamptonshire.  

| A war of words has broken out between the Hong Kong government and U.S.-based Basel Action Network over claims by the government that the watchdog had failed to alert the environmental protection department of a number of toxic e-waste sites in the New Territories.

| The conditional loan offer for the Recylex Group’s German subsidiaries made by a banking pool covers the full funding package sought and amounts to €67 million.

| This trend in grocery shopping, which is very popular in Europe, is not as well known in North America.