Defra’s announcement that it is now illegal for businesses to supply plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds to customers has been heavily criticised by environmental charities for not going far enough.

Plastic pollution campaign group City to Sea has today called the UK Government ban on plastic straws, cotton buds, and drink stirrers, “just a drop in a very plastic polluted ocean” and urged it to scale up its plans.

Latin America and the Caribbean must reconsider its economic model in order to fight the long-term impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new research paper by Chatham House.

OPRL hopes to reduce confusion and inconsistency with its new recyclability certification scheme, ‘Certified As Recyclable’, in collaboration with RECOUP.

50 per cent of plastic used in Coca-Cola’s core portfolio in Great Britain is now recycled, but the company calls for better designed DRS in order to achieve an entirely circular recycling scheme.

A new report ‘Talking Trash’ has accused multinational companies, including Coca-Cola, Unilever and Mars, of hypocrisy for their part in the plastic crisis.

Behaviour change charity Hubbub has launched its Greenprint for a Better Britain plan to call for a sustainable Covid-19 recovery with policy recommendations targeting food waste, transport, textiles and recycling.

UK supermarket Tesco is set to trial new recycled food-grade soft plastic packaging on a range of cheeses in its stores this week, the first time that soft plastic packaging has been recycled into safe food-grade packaging.

Research carried out by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) and its New Plastics Economy programme has found digital watermarks to be the most encouraging technology in the future of waste sorting.

Plastics recycling charity RECOUP has launched the RecyClassUK certification scheme to bring consistency to the rigid plastic packaging value chain