Politics

| Russia has more than 41,000 square kilometers landfills area which is equal to the size of Switzerland, says Greenpeace. The non-governmental environmental organization recently ranked some of the country’s regions based on their waste programs wherein cities of Vladivostok, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, and Novosibirsk stood out as leaders in separate waste collection and recycling.

| India is one the careless nations which does not seem take waste management seriously. It is rightly termed as a country underdevelopment despite having potential to make the system work by adopting advanced useful methods.

| The National Environment Agency (NEA) of Singapore recently called for a tender to study the life-cycle assessment of food packaging wherein disposables used in takeaway food and for dining-in accounted for more than one-tenth of all plastic, paper and cardboard waste produced in 2015, in the country.

| The East African Community (EAC) member nations have agreed to form a Regional E-waste Management Committee to tackle growing e-waste in the region. The Regional E-waste Management Committee will comprise of six nations- Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan.

| A new report titled ‘Virtuous Circle’ suggests that businesses and governments can work in tandem to attain sustainability goals by adopting circular economy approach to waste management which will benefit the society at large and also create employment opportunities.

| Manufacturers are becoming increasingly concerned about the rising costs of product manufacturing – particularly those associated with the end-of-life disposal of these products. A statement by Hermann Erdman, CEO of REDISA (Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa).

| The city of Karachi – which also happens to be the capital of Sindh province of Pakistan, and also the seventh populous city in world – is dealing with a serious problem of garbage disposal.

| 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.