(GUF) £1.5 BILLION AND NO SHOPPING LIST

The UK’s new packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR) scheme is expected to generate around £1.5 billion per year. That’s not small change; that’s not a new bin lorry money; that’s enough money to reshape the entire UK recycling system but we still don’t have a clear, publicly understood plan for how it will be spent.

Who Actually Gets the Money?

Under pEPR, the funding is primarily intended for local authorities responsible for household waste collection and disposal such as Waste Collection Authorities (WCAs) – typically district and borough councils and Waste Disposal Authorities (WDAs) – typically county councils or unitary authorities Across England, this breaks down roughly as 309 Waste Collection Authorities/31 Waste Disposal Authorities.

In addition, there are also Unitary Authorities (doing both roles), combined authorities and partnerships and the sevolved nations (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) running parallel systems so depending on how you count it, you’re looking at roughly 400 local authorities across the UK that could be eligible to receive pEPR funding in some form.

In theory, pEPR is beautifully simple - packaging producers pay a charge for every tonne of packaging they place on the UK market - local authorities get funded and hey presto, recycling improves. The funding is meant to cover the efficient and effective cost of managing household packaging waste including the collection (bins, vehicles, crews), sorting, recycling, communications, labelling, data reporting and compliance.

In short, producers pick up the tab for packaging waste that households generate. A fair principle which is long overdue but unfortunately still without a clear spending blueprint.

For a £1.5 billion annual fund, we still don’t have a clear national investment plan; a standardised model for how councils should use the money; a transparent breakdown of expected allocations per authority or a defined link between funding and performance outcomes. At the moment, it's a bit - 'Here’s the money… we’ll work out the details later' which, in waste terms is the policy equivalent of ordering a skip without knowing where you’re delivering it.

Reinforcing the Status Quo

I believe that without structure, this funding seriously risks being used just to plug existing budget gaps and/or maintaining current (often inefficient) collection systems; continued inconsistent material streams actually recycled across regions and if the system doesn’t change, the outcomes obviously won’t either.

No Link to Procurement Behaviour

Waste doesn’t start in the bin store. It starts in procurement and pEPR is supposed to influence producers through modulated fees (based on how hard the packaging is to recycle) but if local authorities aren’t aligned with that signal we get a disconnect where producers pay more for hard-to-recycle packaging, councils still struggle to process it and the system absorbs the cost but doesn’t fix the cause which will only (understandably) result in push back from the packaging manufacturers.

A Data Gap in a Data-Driven Era

With Digital Waste Tracking on the horizon (don't hold your breath for phase 3), we’re about to enter a world where waste is tracked in near real time; the responsibility becomes traceable and poor data becomes visible, yet pEPR funding isn’t clearly tied to data quality improvements, infrastructure for tracking or standardised reporting systems which raises a question; are we funding yesterday’s system rather than facilitating the arrival of tomorrow’s?

What Should Be Happening?

If £1.5 billion is genuinely on the table each year, then at minimum we should see:

• A National Investment Framework with clear guidance on what councils should spend the money on and what “efficient and effective” actually means?

• Performance-Linked Funding. Not just: “Here’s your allocation” but “Here’s your allocation—based on recycling performance, contamination levels and documented improvement”

• Standardisation of Collections with fewer variations, more consistency of the materials collected, the container types and labelling otherwise we’re just funding confusion at scale.

We need alignment with procurement and EPR signals making sure hard-to-recycle materials become operationally and financially unattractive and easy-to-recycle materials flow through the system efficiently (the RAM structure should address this) - link

• Integration with Digital Waste Tracking - we should use funding to upgrade systems, improve data accuracy and enable real-time reporting.

This Is a 'once in a generation' opportunity - £1.5 billion per year is not just funding. Used properly, it could standardise recycling across the UK driving better product design, reducing residual waste, improving data and compliance. Used poorly, it becomes just another line in a budget spreadsheet. If we don’t decide what this money is for, the system will decide for us and the system, historically, isn’t great at change. More like this (pEPR) - link - more like this (packaging) - link

(GRI) UTAH CRAVES NUCLEAR - (WASTE)

The Republicans who dominate Utah’s politics — from the legislature to the governor’s mansion — are aggressively pursuing nuclear power, but a problem that had confounded fission supporters over the last century lingers: what to do with all the dangerous waste. 

Now the state is exploring whether to become a solution — by storing nuclear waste in the massive salt deposit in Millard County, a rural part of the state with a long history of meeting the West’s energy needs.

Caverns carved into that salt deposit already hold natural gas liquids, gasoline, and other fuels. Separate storage of hydrogen began there this year to support the massive Intermountain Power Plant’s shift from coal generation to carbon-free energy.

The Trump administration recently announced that it wants states to volunteer as hosts for “nuclear lifecycle innovation campuses” — sites that will take spent radioactive material for a variety of uses, such as storage, recycling, enrichment, fabrication, or powering manufacturing and data centers.

The same day in late January that the U.S. Department of Energy began soliciting states to host campuses, state Senator Derrin Owens, a Republican, contacted several other lawmakers, lobbyists, private equity investors, and Millard County officials, in an email obtained by the Millard County Chronicle Progress and shared with The Salt Lake Tribune.

“Friends,” Owens wrote on January 28, “HERE IT IS – this is Utah’s once in a lifetime opportunity to host one of these sites.” (Owens declined to comment for this story.)

Owens, who represents half of Millard County, noted that the group had “tried to lay the groundwork” for opportunities to store and repurpose nuclear waste with Curio, a startup headquartered in Washington D.C. that’s developing a process to recycle spent fuel.

Millard County’s salt dome — a remnant of an ancient ocean from the time dinosaurs roamed the Earth — apparently makes Utah a particularly attractive candidate. The only other state interested in becoming a nuclear waste campus that has such a formation is Mississippi, according to Owens. “Let’s lead the West,” the state senator wrote. More of this article (Grist) - link - more like this (Utah) - link - more like this (nuclear waste) - link

(SMA) LIDL & PREZERO PARTNER WITH UEFA

Schwarz Group companies Lidl and PreZero have signed a long-term agreement with UEFA to promote healthy eating, exercise and circularity in football.

UEFA has announced that the companies of Schwarz Group will become its first strategic corporate partner.

It has signed a long-term agreement with Lidl and PreZero, which aims to promote innovation, sustainability and social responsibility in European football. Guy-Laurent Epstein, Executive Director of Marketing at UEFA, says: “We are delighted to welcome the companies of Schwarz Group as our first strategic corporate partner.

“Together, we are combining our strengths to shape the future of European football in a sustainable, responsible and competitive way. “Alongside Lidl, we will leverage the power of football to bring the passion for exercise and conscious nutrition beyond professional sports into grassroots sports. PreZero is the ideal partner to drive the transformation from a linear to a circular economy. “Together, we will achieve a measurable impact in stadiums and enable football organisations to make waste management and resource conservation economical, sustainable and future-proof.”

How Lidl promotes healthy nutrition

Lidl will become a sponsor of UEFA Grassroots and UEFA Take Care, where it will provide expertise for social and educational initiatives across Europe. It will also be the exclusive sponsor of UEFA Football in Schools, which has active projects in all 55 UEFA member associations. Lidl will help to support projects that promote balanced nutrition, physical activity and sport in children’s everyday lives.

Building upon this commitment, Lidl and UEFA plan to launch a pan-European digital platform which will support national associations to deliver UEFA Football in Schools. This platform will combine football, education and healthy nutrition, providing guidance and online courses for teachers and coaches.

The aim of this project is to promote active lifestyles for children through age-appropriate online content. Jens Thiemer, Chief Customer Officer at Lidl International, says: “We are further developing our collaboration with UEFA in such a targeted manner and are creating sustainable added value for society with the first strategic corporate partnership of UEFA. “With the help of UEFA and the power of football, we bring our expertise in conscious nutrition to exactly where it makes a difference: to coaches, parents and children in grassroots sports. “After all, social change is not only decided in the stadium, but above all in the schoolyard and in local clubs.”

Bringing circularity to football

Another one of Schwarz Group’s companies is PreZero, which focuses on scaling the circular economy. In its partnership with UEFA, it will help implement circular economy solutions across competitions, stadiums and organisational operations.

After previously working with leading international clubs and venues, PreZero will use its experience to provide expertise on reducing waste, optimising recycling systems and measuring environmental performance. This collaboration will also provide training programmes for football organisations and stakeholders, which helps them meet current and future sustainability requirements, as well as identifying approaches to resource management.

Marcus Sagitz, Managing Director of Marketing and Corporate Affairs at PreZero International, says: “As a pioneer of the circular economy, we are sending a strong signal: if the transition from linear waste management to a functioning circular economy in European professional sports is successful, it will serve as a model for many parts of the economy.

“Today, the circular economy is an economic necessity. That is why we empower associations and clubs to combine sustainability with economic efficiency and prove on the main football stage that the preservation of valuable resources and top-class sports are inseparable.”

Men’s team sponsorship

Lidl is also building upon its existing sponsorship of UEFA women’s national team competitions, by becoming a sponsor of the men’s national team competitions until 2030. This collaboration builds upon its successful partnership that began in 2024, when Lidl became an official partner of UEFA EURO 2024.

The new partnership between UEFA and Lidl will cover UEFA EURO 2028, which will take place in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, with Lidl joining Adidas, Atos, Carlsberg, Coca-Cola, Qatar Airways and Visit Qatar as an official sponsor. More of this article (Sustainability Magazine) - link - more like this (Lidl) - link - more like this (football) - link

(EUN) FREE ELECTRICITY

Europe’s outdated and under-invested energy grid means huge amounts of renewable energy are wasted every year. The case for renewable energy is stronger than ever, as the war on Iran continues to highlight the dangers of fossil fuel dependency.

While Brent crude, the world benchmark for oil prices, dipped yesterday morning (26 March) amid rising hopes of de-escalation, barrel prices have exceeded $100 (around €86.38) per barrel several times since the conflict began. Before the US-Israel war on Iran, oil prices were under €63 per barrel.

Much of the surge has been blamed on the Strait of Hormuz’s effective closure. This is one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel chokepoints, carrying around one-fifth of global oil supplies.

Analysts warn that oil prices won’t “snap back” straight after the war ends, especially if more energy infrastructure is targeted. It’s why petrol and energy prices have surged across Europe, resulting in calls to open up drilling licenses in the North Sea. However, an analysis from the University of Oxford has found that maximising oil and gas extraction here would only save UK households up to £82 (€95) per year. A UK fully powered by renewable energy, on the other hand, could save households up to £441 (€510) a year on their energy bills.

How much renewable energy does Europe waste?

Despite geopolitical tensions bolstering the appeal of green energy, Europe continues to waste billions of wind and solar energy. Last year, Britain wasted a staggering £1.47 billion (around €1.78 billion) by turning down wind turbines and paying gas plants to switch on.

Yesterday, wasted wind has cost Britain more than £1.31 million (around €1.5 million). Around £95,091 (€109,831) of this comes from switching off wind turbines (curtailment), while the rest comes from buying energy elsewhere, which often relies on fossil fuels.

In Germany, compensation costs for the curtailment of renewable energy hit €435 million last year. While this is a 22 per cent decrease compared to 2024 (€554 million) – it highlights the mass scale of green energy being wasted across Europe.

Curtailment rates rose to record levels in several EU nations including Spain and France during the first nine months of 2025, strengthening calls to tackle bottlenecks and improve energy infrastructure across the continent.

Why is Europe wasting so much renewable energy?

When wind speeds get too strong, the electricity grid is often filled with more green energy than it actually needs. “This creates rush hour traffic on the grid and the energy can’t get to where it’s needed,” Octopus Energy, a UK energy firm, states. “As a result, we pay to make it again - often with dirty fossil fuels - as well as paying to switch the wind off.”

Improving the grid will be the biggest help to reduce wasted electricity, but this is both expensive and complicated. Europe’s grid was originally planned around coal, and later gas – meaning it is designed to move electricity from centrally located plants.

Many wind farms are located in remote and offshore locations, meaning it is more difficult to transport the electricity they produce. 

Experts warn that Europe’s power grid is increasingly becoming the bottleneck to achieving Net Zero. A 2025 study by Aurora Energy Research calls for rapid grid expansion to tackle rising connection queues, congestion and limited cross-border capacity.

According to the report, congestion management costs in Europe neared €9 billion in 2024, while 72TWh of mainly renewable energy was curtailed due to bottlenecks. This is roughly equivalent to Austria’s annual electricity consumption.

While grid investment in Europe has increased by 47 per cent over the past five years to around €70 billion annually, experts warn it still falls short of what’s required.

Is free energy the solution?

Amid calls to fix Europe’s outdated energy grid, the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has unveiled plans to supply homes with discounted power on windy days. “Sometimes there is too much wind for our outdated grid to handle, especially in Scotland and the East of England,” the government wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

“Rather than paying wind farms to switch off we’re trialling a new system where people who live near these constrained areas get cheaper - or even free - electricity.”

Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, which has long been pushing for reforms to provide cheaper energy rather than curtailing wind power, argues that trials are “hugely ineffective” - even though he was “pleased” with the announcement. More of this article (Euro News) - link - more like this (wind energy) - link - more like this (grid) - link

(ICN) WHEN RECYCLABLE DOESN'T MEAN RECYCLED

Frappuccino lovers, rejoice: Your plastic to-go cups are now “widely recyclable.”

That’s according to an announcement made in February by Starbucks, the waste hauler WM (formerly known as Waste Management), and three recycling groups called The Recycling Partnership, GreenBlue, and Closed Loop Partners. In a press release, they said that more than 60 percent of U.S. households can now recycle cold to-go cups in their curbside recycling bins. This makes the cups eligible for one of GreenBlue’s special labels featuring the familiar chasing arrows triangle and the words “widely recyclable.”

“To-go cups are entering a new era of recyclability,” the release said.

However, there’s a catch. Just because a product can be collected for recycling doesn’t mean it actually gets recycled. To imply otherwise is to conflate two very different numbers: the access rate and the real recycling rate. The former describes the number of people who are told they have “access” to a recycling program for a given product. The latter—the amount of plastic that is ultimately turned into new things—is what really matters, from an environmental standpoint. There’s not much evidence to suggest that the recycling rate for plastic cups is above 1 or 2 percent.

“This is one of those situations where statistics can be very misleading,” said Alex Jordan, a plastics researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. “They can pull a statistic that would make the public think that all these things are being recycled, but unfortunately even if you clean and dry and put your recycling in the recycling bin and it gets picked up, the overwhelming likelihood is that it ends up in a landfill or being burned for energy generation.”

Jordan is one of several experts across government, academia, and industry who question the feasibility of recycling plastic cups. Polypropylene, the type of plastic Starbucks’ cups are made from, is ubiquitous in packaging and foodware but not in recycling facilities. It’s often contaminated with food or other types of plastic, difficult to sort, and expensive to process—so most recyclers don’t want it.

There “just aren’t a lot of recycling centers that want to accept polypropylene,” Jordan said.

The manager of one recycling center in California, who asked not to be named, said the cup announcement represents little more than a convenient alignment of interests: It generates good press and revenue for GreenBlue, allows WM to collect more material, and casts Starbucks as eco-friendly without requiring it to move away from single-use plastic.

“Everyone wants that warm, fuzzy recyclable label,” the manager said, adding that they suspected there would be no buyers for polypropylene even if they advertised it widely. “Our phone would not ring. It’s not something there are a lot of mills out there that are buying.” More of this publication (Inside Climate News) - link - more like this (cup recycling) - link - more like this (coffee) - link - more like this (polypropylene) - link

(GUF) THE BURNING QUESTION

Are we building too many incinerators just as waste policy is designed to reduce the feedstock?

If residual waste is expected to fall significantly over the next two decades, it raises the uncomfortable question - why are we still building so many new incinerators?

Current industry reporting suggests that the UK already has 63 operational EfW plants, with 13 more under construction whilst at the same time, government policy is attempting to reduce the amount of residual waste entering the system through a series of major reforms.

Those reforms include:

• Simpler Recycling, which standardises recycling collections.
• Extended Producer Responsibility, which makes packaging producers pay the full cost of managing their waste.
• Deposit Return Scheme, designed to capture drinks containers before they reach residual waste.
• Digital Waste Tracking, which will improve regulatory oversight of waste flows.
• And now the inclusion of energy-from-waste within the UK Emissions Trading Scheme.

Each of these policies is designed to reduce residual waste over time and taken together, they represent the most significant attempt in decades to move the UK towards a more circular economy.

The addition of Emissions Trading Scheme costs to waste incineration changes the financial landscape again. Once EfW facilities must purchase carbon allowances for their emissions, the cost of burning waste will rise which in turn creates a stronger incentive to reduce residual waste, increase recycling and divert materials further up the waste hierarchy

Basically, the policy direction is clearly aimed at reducing the feedstock that EfW plants rely on and this is where the tension emerges. Building large-scale EfW facilities requires long investment horizons; typically, 25 to 30 years but the policies now being introduced are designed to shrink the residual waste stream over that same period.

Are we at risk of building too much incineration capacity just as the system is being redesigned to produce less waste to burn?

If the UK succeeds in driving residual waste down towards 10 million tonnes per year, the country will only need roughly 25 to 33 EfW plants, depending on plant size and we already have 63 operating facilities, with thirteen more still coming online.

The danger therefore may not be a shortage of incineration capacity. It may be building too much of it before the full effects of recycling and carbon policy have had time to work. More like this (legislation) - link - more like this (incineration) - link

(GUF) DEPOSIT RETURN SCHEME - IS IT WORTH IT?

Within the UK waste sector, support for a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) has long been treated as a given. Higher capture rates, cleaner material streams, less litter, the theory is compelling and the international evidence is well established but a quieter question is now beginning to surface across the industry.

Do we actually know what problem DRS is fixing in a post Simpler Recycling world? This isn’t an argument against DRS. We know well designed deposit systems clearly work; the real issue for the UK is one of timing, sequencing and value, and right now, those questions deserve a more honest airing.

Simpler Recycling represents the most significant structural shift in UK collections in my career, in a generation even. Consistent household collections, aligned workplace recycling, mandatory core materials; the direction of travel is clear and in principle welcome but most local authorities are still adjusting; workplace reforms are still bedding in and behaviour change is still evolving. Infrastructure is still being configured.

In other words, we are mid-transition, not at a steady state which raises a perfectly reasonable operational question: should we be layering a major parallel collection system on top of one that has not yet fully stabilised?

Deposit Return Schemes are often discussed primarily in terms of environmental upside. Less frequently examined is the cost required to deliver them. A national DRS is not a light touch intervention. It brings with it three substantial cost centres.

Reverse vending machines/retail take-back arrangements, backhaul logistics and counting centres represent significant fixed investment and these costs exist regardless of whether the UK gains five percentage points of additional capture or twenty.

DRS does not operate in a vacuum. It sits alongside kerbside collections, commercial recycling services and existing materials contracts. The potential for duplication, material leakage between systems and local authority revenue displacement is real and must be carefully managed. International experience shows that mature DRS schemes must invest heavily in scheme integrity: barcode validation, cross-border fraud prevention, audit systems and compliance monitoring. None of this makes DRS unworkable but robust control frameworks are not cost neutral.

Taken together, this is a complex and capital-intensive policy tool.

The most important question for the UK is not ideological, but mathematical. What is the cost per additional tonne captured via DRS compared with what Simpler Recycling may already deliver? If consistent collections and workplace reforms significantly lift the capture of bottles and cans as many expect, then the incremental gain delivered by DRS may be narrower than headline comparisons with other countries suggest.

If current reforms push capture toward the mid-to-high 70% range and DRS pushes that into the high 80s or low 90s, the policy question becomes whether the final tranche of material justifies the full parallel system cost. In a world of constrained public and producer finances, marginal gains matter but so does marginal cost.

None of this is to dismiss the genuine strengths of deposit systems. Evidence consistently shows DRS performs strongly in ‘on-the-go capture’, litter reduction, production of very high quality PET and aluminium and clear consumer signalling around material value. These are real benefits and should be acknowledged openly but recognising strengths does not remove the need for careful sequencing/allowing bedding-in periods.

As stated, the UK is in the middle of the most significant recycling system reform in years. Before committing fully to another major structural intervention, there is a credible case for allowing Simpler Recycling to bed in and for capture data to stabilise.

This is not about delay for its own sake. It’s about designing the right intervention for the actual residual problem rather than the one we assumed several years ago when policy direction was first set, because in waste policy, as in most operational systems, timing is rarely a footnote, it’s often the difference between smart reform and expensive overlap.

The question is no longer simply whether DRS works, the more practical UK question may be - should we implement DRS now or should we first allow Simpler Recycling to settle, measure the true capture gap and only then deploy the intervention that closes it most effectively? That is a debate worth having. More like this (DRS) – link – more like this (recycling) – link – more like this (random) - link

(MON) EARN AS YOU WASTE

OJUELEGBA, Nigeria — On the bustling streets of this central Lagos neighborhood, it’s easy to buy a drink. Hawkers weave between buses and motorcycles with wheelbarrows of bottled water and canned beverages. Finding a bin for the empty container is much harder. Many end up on the ground.

Glass, cardboard, aluminum and — most commonly — plastic collect in piles at busy junctions and in open gutters, mixed with food waste and refuse from nearby shops and homes. Drains clog, and stagnant water lingers.

Bayo Adeolu, proud holder of a degree in plant biology from the University of Lagos, spent months tramping these same streets in search of work. He endured rejection after rejection, then tried selling used phones with a friend, but competition in this saturated market beat them back.

One afternoon, scrolling through social media, a post caught his eye. “Earn-As-You-Waste,” it read, advertising an information session for Pakam, a company promoting recycling as a source of income. At the session, Pakam’s staff explained how participants could earn money by collecting recyclable waste from the company’s clients. Registered collectors, they said, would be trained to sort and weigh the waste, record this shabby bounty digitally, and transport the recovered materials to aggregation points.

The state of Lagos state generates nearly 5.5 million metric tons of solid waste every year, according to the state waste management authority — or roughly 15,000 metric tons a day. A 2024 World Bank study estimated that nearly 40% of this rubbish is recyclable — yet no more than 12% is retrieved from the waste stream. The same report calculated that more than 60% of the state’s solid waste is “unmanaged” — neither recycled nor collected for dumping in one of three official landfills that are fast reaching capacity

The initiative that caught Adeolu’s eye, Earn-As-You-Waste is one of several private efforts aiming to increase collection of recyclables in Lagos. The project’s operator, Pakam Technology Limited, says 18,000 people have made use of its mobile app to schedule collection of plastics, aluminum cans, cardboard and other recyclables by Pakam’s collectors.

Collecting and transporting recyclables in the crowded streets of areas like Ojuelegba is challenging. Pushing wheelbarrows or dragging sacks of crushed cans and plastic bottles through narrow lanes and congested markets, Adeolu and his fellow collectors draw impatient honks from passing motorists and good-natured abuse from pedestrians stepping around them. From Ojuelegba, the waste is taken to Pakam’s aggregation hub in Maryland, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north, for further sorting before being sold to recycling companies.

“The idea is to make recycling accessible and motivate communities to adopt better waste disposal habits,” Pakam’s executive director, Olumide Ajayi, tells Mongabay. He says the initiative has recovered more than 170,000 metric tons of recyclable waste since it launched in 2021.

Pakam’s army of waste pickers includes both collectors, who respond to requests sent in via the app, and others who gather recyclables independently from streets and neighborhoods.

“Our Earn-As-You-Waste program creates real earnings opportunities for Lagos youths whilst coaching them realistic skills in waste sorting, recycling, and logistics,” Ajayi tells Mongabay. “By participating in the program, young people gain experience that not only helps them earn a living today but also improves their employability for future jobs in the environmental and recycling sectors.”

But the work is poorly paid. According to the company, Pakam’s collectors earn around 35,000 naira per week, or about $30, which is less than half what other kinds of manual labor in Lagos would typically pay. But extremely high rates of youth unemployment mean many young people are still willing to take up the opportunity.

Adeolu says his earnings fluctuate depending on the volume and type of recyclables he collects each week. He estimates his average pay at around $35 per week, or double that on a good week. More of this article (Mongabay) - link - more like this (Nigeria) - link - more like this (recycling) - link - more like this (Lagos) - link

(GUF) THE DIRTY SECRET OF PROPORTIONAL SCORING

Every few years, like others, the waste industry goes through the same ritual. A tender lands, the weightings look sensible, the questions look robust; everyone nods earnestly and talks about quality partnerships.

And then someone wins it by being spectacularly cheap. Not efficient, not innovative and definitely not demonstrably better; just cheaper and everyone pretends to be surprised. On paper, most public-sector waste tenders follow a familiar structure:-

• Quality: 60%
• Price: 40%

It looks balanced; it feels responsible and seems to tick all the governance boxes. The theory is sound: reward good service while protecting public money. The reality however can be gamed and often is because proportional price scoring has a mathematical gravity that many procurement teams quietly underestimate.

Under proportional scoring, the lowest price almost always anchors the entire competition. Once that anchor is dropped, everyone else is fighting uphill regardless of how strong their quality submission is. What this creates in practice is a very predictable strategy; submit a compliant (not exceptional) quality response then go aggressively low on price and let the scoring model do the heavy lifting. If the quality questions are not sufficiently discriminating and being honest, many aren’t, the pricing lever becomes disproportionately powerful.

At that point, the tender stops being a question of who will deliver the best service and quietly becomes one of who is most willing to take the commercial risk and those are not the same question.

Inside our industry, most experienced operators recognise the pattern. Broadly speaking, bidders tend to fall into two camps: -

1. The Delivery-Led Bidder

• Prices based on known disposal costs
• Builds in realistic crew assumptions
• Allows for reporting, compliance and account management
• Expects to actually deliver what was written in the quality submission

2. The Margin-Chasing Bidder

• Prices to win first
• Works out the delivery model later
• Relies on operational stretch, variation income, or future renegotiation
• Knows the maths of proportional scoring inside out

When a contract is effectively bought, the consequences rarely appear on day one. The mobilisation looks fine; the launch meeting is full of enthusiasm and everyone posts something optimistic on LinkedIn.

The stress shows up later; typically in the form of service inconsistency, reporting gaps, account management drift, operational shortcuts or the inevitable quiet reappearance of “cost pressures” 12 months in and none of this is inevitable.

Experienced clients know this but many just don’t model for it properly at tender stage. To be clear, this isn’t about blaming procurement teams. Most are working within rigid frameworks and doing their best to balance cost and compliance but there is a recurring blind spot in waste tenders. The scoring model often assumes all compliant bids are operationally equal when they’re definitely not. In waste services, particularly multi-stream, compliance-heavy environments; small pricing gaps can reflect very different delivery assumptions:-

• Crew structure
• Supervision levels
• Data and reporting investment
• Contingency capacity
• Compliance overhead

If the quality questions don’t flush those differences out properly, price becomes a dangerously blunt instrument. More like this (waste) - link - more like this (procurement) - link

(GRE) ALLBIRDS - COW FREE TYRE RICH SHOES

Footwear giant Allbirds has launched what it claims is an “industry-first” collection of shoes made from Modern Meadow’s cow-free leather alternative.

Allbirds may be closing all its US stores, but the global footwear company continues to bet on sustainability.

Its new Terralux collection is built on Innovera, a material made by New Jersey startup Modern Meadow, which turns plant-based proteins, biopolymers, and post-consumer recycled nylon from end-of-life tyres into animal-free leather.

The three-strong Terralux collection includes two of Allbirds’s newest and best-selling styles, Cruiser and Varsity, as well as the Runner NZ, an evolution of the Wool Runner silhouette that launched the brand over a decade ago.

“Terralux marks an important evolution for Allbirds,” said Jason Israel, VP of design at Allbirds. “Innovera allowed us to achieve the look and feel of leather in a bio-based material, opening the door to more elevated, versatile footwear – while still delivering on our comfort and sustainability promise.” More of this article (green queen) - link - More like this (tyres) - link - more like this (shoes) - link

(GUF) FIVE GO RECYCLING

For the first time in decades, the UK has something approaching a coherent legislative roadmap for waste and recycling. Instead of isolated policies and good intentions, we now have five major pieces of legislation that taken together form a joined up path toward a circular economy.

The five are:

• Simpler Recycling
• Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR)
• Digital Waste Tracking (DWT)
• Deposit Return Scheme (DRS)
• Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for incineration

If you look at them as a system they make a lot of sense. In simple terms they form a logical chain - standardise collections, fund the system, track the waste, capture the most valuable materials then price the carbon.

From a policy perspective, it’s the most structured approach the UK has taken in years but while the direction is coherent, the timelines are not. Each of these measures relies on very different parts of our industry, different behaviours and different levels of infrastructure. The result is that we don’t really have five reforms moving at once; we have five reforms moving at five different speeds and that matters.

1. Simpler Recycling – The Foundation That Unites An Industry 

Out of the five, Simpler Recycling is the most grounded in operational reality.

It sets out a defined list of recyclable materials, a national framework for what must be collected. Greater consistency across local authorities and commercial premises should become the norm. This isn’t a theoretical or technological leap, it’s a procurement and infrastructure adjustment using systems that already exist. Councils already collect recyclables; businesses already separate waste and contractors already operate multi-stream collections.

Simpler Recycling is essentially about saying 'here’s the list, everyone works to it'. There will be friction, there always is but this is the one reform that relies least on new technology, new behaviours or brand-new national infrastructure; it's the baseline reform, the one that sets the tone.

My verdict: It's in, it's working.

2. pEPR – The Funding Engine That Will Drive Change

If Simpler Recycling is the foundation, pEPR is the engine. For years, the UK’s recycling system has relied heavily on council budgets and local taxpayers. pEPR flips that logic. It shifts the cost of managing packaging waste onto the producers who place it on the market. In doing so, it introduces something the system has never really had: a direct financial link between packaging design and disposal cost.

Under pEPR, easy-to-recycle packaging will be cheaper whilst complex or composite materials will cost more and ultimately councils will receive funding from producers. Finally, the overall system will be financially reinforced.

There will be arguments about fee levels. There always are when money changes hands but the basic mechanism is sound and widely used across Europe. In simple terms pEPR is too logical to fail. It has political backing, international precedent and a clear economic rationale.

My Verdict: It's in and it will reshape packaging design over time and everything will come in a can.

3. Digital Waste Tracking – Where Policy Meets Reality

On paper, Digital Waste Tracking is one of the most elegant reforms in the entire package. The vision is simple; no more paper transfer notes, real time tracking of waste from producer to final destination, full transparency across the supply chain, better enforcement and reduced illegal activity.

Technically, it’s all achievable, the software exists, the systems exist and the data flows are well understood but there’s a difference between what is technically possible and what is operationally realistic. The UK waste industry isn’t made up of a few large players. It’s made up of tens of thousands of carriers, brokers and operators. Many are small firms, some are still paper-based, some rely on spreadsheets and a few still rely on memory and a bic biro.

Expecting around 60,000 operators to input accurate data consistently in real time and do it to a national standard is not a technology challenge it’s a behavioural and compliance challenge.

Phases 1 and 2 will happen. Basic digital records will come in and paper will gradually disappear but the final vision of fully automated, real-time national tracking will take longer than the timelines suggest. Not because it’s wrong, because it’s ambitious.

My Verdict: Phase 3 will never happen - only South Korea has ever achieved it.

• The direction is correct.
• The timeline is optimistic.
• Phase three will take years to stabilise and then be dropped.

4. Deposit Return Scheme – The National Logistics Experiment

DRS is often talked about as a policy. In reality, it’s not a policy at all. It’s a national logistics operation disguised as a recycling scheme. To work properly, it needs:

• Reverse vending machines across the country.
• Regional collection networks.
• Counting and sorting centres.
• Fraud prevention systems.
• New vehicle fleets.
• New depots.
• New staff.

All of that has to work from day one. The UK is likely to be divided into multiple regions. Each region will need its own infrastructure, vehicles and operating teams. In reality, what will probably happen is one or two regions will launch smoothly, but others will struggle with infrastructure or staffing. Performance will be uneven at first.

That doesn’t mean DRS will fail, it just means it will mature over time, not overnight. A more realistic timeline would look like:

• Year 1: Mixed performance across regions.
• Years 2–3: Systems stabilise and improve.
• Year 4 onwards: Mature national operation.

DRS will work. But it will take time to find its feet.

My Verdict: It will succeed. It just won’t be uniform from day one - the London region will have serious collection issues forever.

5. ETS for Incineration – The Political Wild Card

Including waste incineration in the Emissions Trading Scheme is, from an economic perspective, entirely logical. It prices the carbon cost of burning waste and encourages recycling over incineration and aligns waste with other carbon-intensive sectors. Within the UK, this is achievable.

The systems already exist, the complication is international alignment. Carbon pricing works best when neighbouring markets have similar rules. Cross-border distortions are minimised. If the UK introduces ETS on incineration and parts of the EU do not, waste could be exported. Price differences could distort markets. Carbon tourism' becomes a real possibility.

The EU is still debating whether to include incineration in its own ETS framework and with geopolitical tensions, energy policy and economic pressures dominating the agenda, waste incineration is unlikely to be at the top of the priority list.

My Verdict: The principle is sound; the UK can implement it but real alignment with the EU may take longer than expected.

One Direction, Five Different Clocks. All five policies are pointing in the same direction:

• More recycling.
• Better product design.
• Transparent waste flows.
• Carbon accountability.

But they are not moving at the same speed. Simpler Recycling is operational and achievable - pEPR is financially logical and politically supported - DWT is technically sound but behaviourally complex - DRS is infrastructure-heavy and will mature over time - ETS is economically correct but politically dependent.

The risk isn’t that these reforms will fail. The real risk is expecting them all to land at once, in perfect synchronisation as if they were parts of the same machine installed on the same day when they’re not. They’re more like five trains leaving the same station, each on a different track with different distances to travel and different speeds. They’re all heading in the right direction. They just won’t arrive at the destination at the same time and anyone working in the real world of bins, vehicles, depots, drivers, procurement teams and overstretched waste Account Managers like myself knows one simple truth - in waste management, direction matters more than deadlines.

If we keep the direction right, the system will get there. It just won’t happen on the timetable in the press release. More like this (legislation) - link - more like this (waste) - link 

(GUF) WHY DO DEPOSIT RETURN SCHEMES FAIL

Deposit Return Schemes are usually presented as simple, common-sense environmental policies. Put a deposit on a bottle or can, people return it, recycling improved, job done; and in fairness, in some countries that’s exactly what happens - return rates climb, litter falls, hoorah.

When a scheme fails, stalls or collapses before it even starts, the obvious question is why and the answer, more often than not, has nothing to do with recycling but has everything to do with politics, logistics and money.

On paper, DRS looks like a waste policy but it’s something very different. It’s a national cash-handling system supporting a retail logistics network employing a data-tracking operation operating around a fraud-sensitive financial model and a recycling system on top of all that.

Once deposits are attached to containers, you’re no longer just moving waste, you’re moving money in the shape of cans and bottles and that changes everything.

Failures

The most obvious example is Scotland. Scotland attempted to launch its own DRS ahead of the rest of the UK. The scheme included glass, had different rules and was set on a different timeline. The result was regulatory conflict with the UK internal market causing delays and industry resistance leading to the eventual collapse before launch with over £100 million in sunk costs.

The environmental idea was sound but the political framework wasn’t aligned. A DRS cannot work properly in a fragmented market because containers can and do cross borders in the form of supply and retail chains. So, if the scheme doesn’t, problems start immediately.

A single DRS region may involve:

• Millions of containers per day
• Thousands of retail return points
• Dozens of vehicles
• Hundreds of staff
• Multiple depots
• Constant collections

And all of it must work every day from day one with absolute financial accuracy

In several countries, early problems have included reverse vending machines full or broken, retailers overwhelmed, poor rural access and site closures after launch. The schemes didn’t fail because people refused to return containers, they struggled because the logistics weren’t ready for the volume.

In some regions of Australia, the deposit has sat at 10 cents for years, the result being that return rates stuck around 60–65% and billions of containers still going to landfill. When the deposit becomes trivial, behaviour doesn’t change; the scheme exists but it underperforms. A deposit system only works if the deposit actually matters.

Many schemes assume that retailers will simply absorb the operational burden but in reality storage space is limited, staff time is limited and hygiene matters; having loads of empty bottles and cans hanging around is simply not permissible.

In some areas, small return sites have closed after launch because volumes were too high which disrupted the business and systems relied too heavily on manual returns. Retailers are not recycling centres and if the system isn’t designed around that fact, friction builds quickly.

Fraud

As soon as a deposit is attached to a container, it becomes a financial instrument and financial instruments attract creative thinking.

Examples seen in various schemes include:

• Cross-border container smuggling
• Barcode cloning
• Bulk industrial returns
• People retrieving containers from bins to claim deposits

One hypothetical scenario illustrates the risk:

• A MRF extracts cans and bottles from mixed recycling.
• Those containers are sold on.
• They are fed into return machines.
• Deposits are claimed.

If unchecked, that becomes a cash-generation loop - scrap value plus the deposit on material that never came through a consumer return point.

Modern schemes rely on:

• Barcode validation
• Return-point monitoring
• Sales-versus-returns checks
• Audits and anomaly detection

The reality is this that the system doesn’t physically stop the first fraudulent return. It relies on data, enforcement and financial controls which means DRS is as much about fraud prevention as it is about recycling.

DRS is expensive to build. For a single region, a realistic start-up might involve:

• 40 - 80 collection vehicles
• 10 - 25 bulk trailers
• Multiple depots
• Hundreds of staff
• IT integration
• Financial systems

Startup costs per region could easily reach £25 - 40 million before the first container is collected.

When those costs hit producers, retailers and hospitality resistance grows and, in several countries, that resistance has delayed schemes often leading to them being watered down or stopped entirely

Across different countries, the same themes keep appearing.

DRS fails when:

• Politics are fragmented
• Logistics are underestimated
• Deposits are too low
• Retailers are overloaded
• Fraud controls are weak
• Costs shock the system

DRS succeeds when the scheme is nationally aligned and deposits are meaningful, logistics are properly funded and fraud controls are strong and that’s why countries like Germany, Norway and Finland consistently achieve return rates above 90%.

The UK scheme will almost certainly work in the long run. Most do, but its success won’t depend on slogans, targets or policy documents.

It will depend on:

• Depots
• Drivers
• Vehicles
• Retail integration
• Fraud control
• And financial discipline

Who’s going to bid?

It’s no secret that two of the UK’s national operators will undoubtedly bid for the collection of DRS in scope containers. I’ll throw in another three and see whether I was right or wrong when they’re announced: -

• Biffa
• Veolia
• Suez
• FCC
• Urbaser

More like this (Biffa) – link – more like this (DRS) - link

ALLAN KEY

I was very sad to hear of the passing of Allan Key over the weekend who will be remembered fondly by those who worked with him.

He leaves behind a gap that won’t easily be filled. My thoughts are with his family, friends and all who had the privilege of knowing him.

Rest well, Allan.

(ICN) BURNING PLASTIC WASTE

Several global trends are colliding with disastrous consequences for health and the environment, new research warns.

Plastic production has skyrocketed since the 1950s, from a few million tons a year to nearly half a billion tons today, and is on track to triple by 2060. And since just a small fraction of plastics is recycled, millions of tons of plastic—derived from fossil fuels and loaded with toxic chemical additives—enter the environment as waste every year. That staggering figure is also likely to triple by midcentury.

For decades, the United States and other high-income countries have exported their plastic waste to low-income countries in the Global South, many ill-equipped to manage the burgeoning waste stream. At the same time, billions of people across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America lack access to clean cooking fuels, adequate sanitation or waste-management services. As urbanization accelerates at an unprecedented rate across those regions, city dwellers living in extreme poverty often resort to burning debris from the massive mounds of plastic waste that inundate their communities.

Concerned that desperately poor people are increasingly turning to plastic waste as a cheap, convenient fuel, an international team of researchers set out to gauge the prevalence and nature of this emerging public health crisis.

In a survey of more than 1,000 people who work with low-income urban communities across the Global South, the team found that people living in slums without power hookups in more than two dozen countries are burning the plastic waste that surrounds their communities to cook, heat their homes and dispose of garbage.

In a previous paper, a subset of the authors cited anecdotal reports that increasing numbers of poor people living in slums without basic waste-disposal and energy services have resorted to burning plastic trash as an alternative fuel. More of this article (Inside Climate News) - link - more like this (plastic) - link - more like this (sub-Saharan Africa) - link

(OFF) LIONLINK INTERCONNECTOR

National Grid Ventures (NGV) has published updated proposals for the LionLink interconnector, which will connect the future Nederwiek 3 offshore wind farm in the Netherlands to the UK and Dutch grids.

NGV, responsible for building and operating the UK side of LionLink, has now opened an eight-week public consultation for the revised plan that, among other things, names Walberswick as the planned landfall site for the subsea cable.

Following previous consultations on LionLink in 2022 and 2023, NGV announced that the subsea cable for LionLink will be located onshore at Walberswick.

On 19 February 2025, NGV said it selected Walberswick as the preferred landfall location for the new subsea interconnector since the site required a shorter onshore cable route (19.9 kilometres) compared to the alternative Southwold route (32.8 kilometres), reducing the environmental impact and disruption to residents. Walberswick is also less susceptible to coastal erosion and flooding, making it a more sustainable option for the long-term operation of LionLink, NGV says.

NGV stated on 8 January that it was also working closely with local authorities to ensure that no construction takes place on the beach, and that there will be no visible infrastructure once the project is complete. Eighty-four per cent of the UK section of the LionLink cable will be offshore, and all onshore sections will be buried underground. More of this article (offshorewind.biz) - link - more like this (Netherlands) - link - more like this (wind) - link