Eunomia’s latest Local Authority Recycling Carbon Index shows that improvements in Wales and Northern Ireland have overshadowed England’s stuttering recycling efforts.

Restrictions on residual waste and a new kerbside-sort system have seen Merthyr Tydfil go from being one of the worst performing Welsh councils to one of the best over the course of a year, according to new data.

The Environmental Audit Committee is calling for the government to issue a ban on microbeads in cosmetics by the end of 2017, as it believes a voluntary commitment by cosmetic companies is not enough to stem the rise in plastic entering the oceans.

A new anaerobic digestion facility in Nottinghamshire, which will produce renewable energy from agricultural feedstock, has received £13.2 million in funding.

Yesterday marked Earth Overshoot Day, the day we use up the last of the natural resources and processes the planet can replenish in a year, but the day was marked in Scotland with plans to galvanise resource efficiency.

Communities across Scotland are being urged to apply to become the nation’s third Zero Waste Town and test initiatives to reduce waste and improve resource efficiency.

A report due later this year will ‘explore how the UK can move from creating waste to valuing resources’.

Italy has followed France’s lead in establishing a food waste law that the Italian government hopes will double the amount of unused food redistributed by retailers by the end of the year.

MP Therese Coffey has officially been given government responsibility for ‘waste’, reworded from predecessor Rory Stewart’s ‘resource management’ brief.

Shoppers in England are set to use billions fewer plastic bags in the year following the introduction of the five pence charge in October, which has also raised more than £29 million for good causes.