Politics

| Frost & Sullivan has said in a report that rise in waste is expected to become a major reason for concern for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the future. The report said that total waste generated in GCC would increase from 94 million MT in 2015 to about 120 million MT per annum by 2020. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab emirates will predominantly lead the increase in waste generation in the region.

| Stuart Foster, Recoup CEO, has expressed concern that the activities and actions (or lack of them) in 2016 will potentially shape the next decade or more for the UK plastic recycling opportunity.

| China has taken steps to tackle rising e-waste in the country by releasing stringent regulations on e-waste management which requires a comprehensive inspection of the locality and implements monitoring of the entire recycling process.

| U.K.-based firms continue to lead the charge in reducing food and beverage-related waste. There have been several developments in recent times aimed at reducing food waste.

| The US has launched a trade enforcement action against China at the WTO concerning China’s export duties on several different raw materials. The EU intervened in this WTO challenge, a move that has been welcomed by the European Steel Association (EUROFER).

| The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) has said that the waste disposal rate in the state increased in 2015.

| 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.

| 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.

| 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.

| 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.

| UK's recycling reward scheme Greenredeem has found that encouraging rewards-based behaviour change schemes is the only way to increase recycling rates in the country following Brexit.

| Mike Oldfield, an official at California's Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), said that over 300 of the 2,100 recycling centers in the state have been closed in the last year and a half owing to falling prices for scrap materials. rePLanet, the state's biggest private operator, closed 191 centers in past January alone.

| Local and national charities are being cheated out of income by ambitious criminal who have started leaving fake clothes banks in towns and cities.