The Environment Agency served a revocation notice on Windmill Services Ltd, which must now cease all permitted activities or face prosecution. The site has not been operational since November following earlier enforcement action. During the 23 March operation, supported by the DVSA, West Lancashire Borough Council and Knowsley Council, officers also inspected five permitted sites and used drone support from the Joint Unit for Waste Crime.

The enforcement comes days after the government and Environment Agency announced a Waste Crime Action Plan with new powers and doubled funding. Waste Minister Mary Creagh said the crackdown showed "zero tolerance" for waste criminals.

The facility will receive sorted plastic from Eurokey's existing plant in Kettering, less than ten miles away, and convert it into pellets ready for manufacture into new packaging. Reconomy said the closed-loop system would reduce export dependency, lower transport emissions and cut reliance on virgin plastics. Latest government data shows only around 51 per cent of UK plastic packaging is recycled domestically.

The construction phase is almost complete and the site is expected to create more than 30 jobs. Mike Benton, Recycle Loop Managing Director at Reconomy, called the project "an exceptional milestone" for the company and the UK's plastics recycling industry.

The arrest, carried out on 25 March in a dawn raid with West Midlands Police, relates to fraud within the Packaging Producer Responsibility regime. Accredited exporters and reprocessors can sell credits for packaging waste they handle, which producers must then buy to meet their recycling obligations. The Environment Agency says the investigation concerns credits sold for exports that never happened.

It is the second arrest linked to packaging credit fraud in recent weeks. In February, two individuals were arrested in Penzance as part of a separate investigation into packaging fraud worth more than £6 million. The Environment Agency has also published a 10 Point Plan to tackle waste crime, including the creation of an Operational Waste Intelligence and Analysis Unit.

Ambient and chilled foods saw the largest growth since 2022, rising by 62 per cent and 42 per cent respectively. Over two thirds of organisations cited increased capacity to store and handle ambient, chilled and frozen foods as a driver. Seventy-six per cent of surplus food went through charitable routes, with the remaining 24 per cent redistributed commercially.

Since WRAP began tracking redistribution in 2015, the cumulative total has reached 990,000 tonnes, worth over £4 billion and equivalent to nearly 2.4 billion meals. The organisation estimates that 110,000 tonnes of post-farm surplus still has potential for redistribution, rising to 470,000 tonnes when on-farm surplus is included.

Ebilayefa Gbakena, a doctoral student at Coventry University's Institute of Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering, is leading the research. The study involves material testing and microstructural analysis to assess whether high-quality strip steels from vehicle body panels can maintain their mechanical properties after repurposing. With around 1.8 million vehicles reaching end of life in the UK each year, the scrap steel is traditionally shredded and melted in an energy-intensive process.

Gbakena said the research is at an experimental stage and is intended to augment traditional recycling, not replace it. “We need to show that this repurposed steel really is a low-carbon alternative to recycling,” he said. Those interested in taking part can find details on the Coventry University website.