(CIR) EU TIGHTENS UP ON PLASTIC IMPORTS

The European Union is planning stricter controls on plastic imports, including tougher documentation requirements, as it seeks to support domestic recycling plants facing rising costs and competition from cheaper overseas material.

The European Commission said it would introduce tougher rules for plastic imports in an effort to help Europe’s recycling industry, which has been hit by high energy prices and low-cost imports.

According to industry group Plastics Recyclers Europe, Europe’s plastics recycling sector lost more capacity in 2025 than in any previous year, with plants closing in countries including the Netherlands as a result of rising costs and competition from cheaper imports.

A key concern, the Commission said, is that virgin plastic — produced from fossil fuels — is being mislabelled as recycled material. This makes it harder for European recyclers to compete, as genuinely recycled plastic is typically more expensive to produce.

In a policy document published on Tuesday, Reuters news agency reports the European Commission said it would propose legal changes in the first half of 2026 requiring stricter documentation for imports of recycled plastics. It also plans to introduce separate customs codes for recycled and virgin plastics to improve import tracking. More of this article (Circular) - link - more like this (plastic) - link - more like this (EU) - link

(RBL) PLEASE DONATE

I donate to the Royal British Legion; not out of nostalgia, not out of obligation and certainly not for a badge or a poppy shaped pat on the back.

I do it because when my grandad was shot on the Somme in the First World War, in the years that followed, they were there. When he needed it, they helped him stand up again. He lived until 1978 and he never forgot who showed up when it actually mattered.

The RBL deals in reality; veterans, widows, families, people who’ve already paid their share and more.

So here’s the ask, without any BS - if you only make one charitable donation in 2026, please make it to the Royal British Legion. If anyone has earned it, the people they help have - link

(TST) TEXTILES - REUSE BEFORE RECYCLE

TOKYO - At a Uniqlo store in Setagaya City, a 45-minute drive away from the Japanese fashion brand’s flagship store in Ginza, Tokyo, a unique section has been set up.

Opposite the usual displays of sweaters, jackets and Heattech innerwear for the autumn-winter season are a number of racks advertising clothes at very affordable prices.

Most items are priced under $20. For example, a pair of men’s shorts costs 790 yen (S$6.55) while a women’s parka retails for 1,990 yen. This is not Uniqlo’s bargain bin, nor is it its foray into a lower-priced fast-fashion space like that of its sister brand Gu.

It is, in fact, the company’s dedicated second-hand clothes section, reselling Uniqlo clothing that has been collected from customer donations at their stores. A number of items in this collection date back to around 20 years ago, with their labels containing an older version of the Uniqlo logo that I have never seen before.

The mix of modern and dated clothing designs is somewhat reminiscent of a thrift store, the ones you would typically find in the hipster districts of Tokyo. Above the racks, a sign in English says “Washed with care”, a statement of quality assurance from one of the world’s most popular casual wear brands.

This pre-owned project is part of Uniqlo’s Re:Uniqlo programme launched in 2020 to expand its sustainability efforts through extending the lifecycle of its products.

Started in March 2024 as an in-store trial and currently running in three Japan stores, Uniqlo said it is assessing the viability of stable procurement and selling a mixed range of clothes, before possibly launching in other cities in Japan as well as international markets.

Next to the pre-owned clothing section at the Setagaya store is a counter which Uniqlo calls its Re:Uniqlo Studio. Here, in addition to basic repair services, customers can have their damaged garments repaired via a traditional Japanese stitching method called sashiko, which uses simple stitches to create beautiful geometric patterns. Other kinds of patches featuring animal and flower designs are also available.

According to Uniqlo, its repair studios can be found at 66 stores across 23 countries and regions, including the global flagship store at Orchard Central. The sashiko service, however, is currently available only in Japan. More of this article (The Straits Times) - link - more like this (textile recycling) - link - more like this (Japan) - link

(GRI) FORD RETREATS FROM EV MARKET

Ford, a century after it launched the modern automotive era, has given up on its early ambitions to charge into the electrified future.

The company announced that it will delete nearly $20 billion in book value to extricate itself from its EV investments, an eye-popping loss that amounts to one of the biggest corporate impairments ever.

The company, of course, views it differently: The move is a ​“decisive redeployment of capital,” it said on Monday, as it rolled out a string of related strategic changes alongside the write-down.

The pivot hits particularly hard in the southeastern Battery Belt, where Ford had invested in multibillion-dollar BlueOval SK plants to produce batteries and electric vehicles. The EV battery facility in Glendale, Kentucky, will lay off about 1,600 employees, and the local outlet Memphis Commercial Appeal reported that a Ford factory in Tennessee will hire around 1,000 fewer workers than previously planned, now that it is making gas trucks instead of electric ones.

As Ford retreats from EVs, though, it’s enthusiastically embracing battery-making — announcing plans to repurpose the Kentucky plant to fuel its entrance into the grid storage market. It expects to spend roughly $2 billion over the next two years to launch production of lithium iron phosphate cells and package them into 20-foot containers that hold at least 5 megawatt-hours of storage capacity, equivalent to a Tesla Megapack. The plan is to ship at least 20 gigawatt-hours annually by the end of 2027. More of this article (Grist) - link - more like this (Ford) - link - more like this (EV to grid) - link

(NAT) AUSTRIAN POWER GIANTS

Nobody likes to see the view being spoiled by power lines, but they're often a necessary part of modern infrastructure. Perhaps if they could be turned from an eyesore into a focal point, even the staunchest opponents could accept them. Such is the thinking behind this creative project that transforms power line pylons into giant animal sculptures.

The concept, called Austrian Power Giants, comes from the Austrian Power Grid and is developed in partnership with GP designpartners and Baucon. The idea is that each of Austria's nine federal states would feature its own style of pylon in the form of an animal symbolic of the region's identity.

"This nature-inspired design is ultimately intended to become a symbol for nature-friendly infrastructure projects, strengthen the economic and tourism location in the regions and ultimately lead to increased acceptance of grid expansion projects by the general public," explains Austria Power Grid, which is in charge of securing the country's power supply.

So far, just two of the nine designs have been explored. The stork was chosen as the symbolic animal of Burgenland, reflecting the bird's well-known annual visits, while the stag represents the densely wooded Alpine foothills of Lower Austria. The images show that the sculptures look really quite impressive and intricate.

The project recently won a Red Dot Design Award and miniature models of the giant beasts are on display at Singapore's Red Dot Museum until October 2026, where they can be viewed in more detail. More of this article (New Atlas) - link - more like this (National Grid) - link - more like this (Austria) - link

(GUF) WHEN SHOPS CANCEL YOU (PART 1)

The image above is AI-generated and does not depict a Morrisons store or any real individual. This post is not about Morrisons specifically, but about the wider use and evolution of facial recognition and in-store surveillance technology across retail.

You can’t help but notice, as you walk into Morrisons in Reading, the facial recognition screen and camera system spotting, highlighting and logging you as you enter the store. My first thought was - so what?

Supermarkets have had CCTV for decades. Theft is a real issue, staff abuse is rising and no one seriously expects modern retail to operate on blind trust and crossed fingers. Cameras, in themselves, aren’t controversial, they’re part of the furniture; but then the questions start - not alarm bells, just questions. What, exactly, is happening to that data?

Is the system doing something relatively simple, scanning faces in real time, checking them against a known list of previous offenders and then discarding everyone else immediately? If so, the interaction is fleeting, functional and largely invisible; a digital equivalent of a security guard clocking your face and moving on; or is something more layered going on?

Is my presence being logged - arrival time, loiter time, frequency of visits and quietly stitched together with other data Morrisons already holds? Morrisons 'More' card, my transaction history, my product preferences. Not to catch me doing something wrong but to understand me doing something normal.

At that point, the technology stops being purely defensive and starts becoming analytical. That isn’t inherently sinister. I realise that retail has always analysed behaviour: footfall counters, heat maps, basket analysis, promotions tied to past purchases etc. Facial recognition simply lowers the friction. The difference is that you no longer opt in with a card or a barcode scan; your face becomes the identifier.

And that’s where curiosity turns into something more legitimate. Facial data isn’t just another data point. Under UK GDPR, biometric data used for identification sits in a special category for a reason. You can change a password, you can cancel a loyalty card, but you can’t easily change your face unless you’re John Travolta or Nicholas Cage.

So the reasonable questions follow naturally:

Is facial data being processed at all or merely analysed transiently? Is any of it stored and if so, for how long? Is it linked even indirectly to other customer data and crucially, what problem is this technology actually being used to solve? Security? Loss prevention? Staff safety? Or insight, optimisation and behavioural modelling?

I appreciate that none of those are illegitimate aims but they are very different purposes, with very different implications for transparency and proportionality. What’s interesting is not that people notice these systems, it’s that when they do, their instinct isn’t outrage, more - uncertainty, a sense that something meaningful is happening just out of view, without an obvious explanation and that’s where the conversation really begins.

From observer to gatekeeper

There’s another aspect to this technology that’s worth exploring; the gatekeeper question. At what point does a system designed to observe quietly begin to decide? Today, the cameras may be there to deter theft or alert staff to genuine risk. Tomorrow, the same infrastructure could just as easily shift from monitoring to permissioning, from observing who enters, to deciding who may enter.

That transition doesn’t require a dramatic policy change. It’s incremental. A tweak to a ruleset. A broader definition of “risk”. A new category quietly added to a watchlist. Once a system exists that can identify individuals in real time at the door, the technical leap from alert to deny is not a large one. That isn’t an accusation; it’s a systems observation.

Supposing a customer writes a blog post questioning facial recognition in supermarkets. It gains a bit of traction. It’s noticed internally. Could that ever feed into a “be on the lookout for” mindset? Not because the individual has stolen anything but because they’re now seen as potentially problematic, disruptive or simply unhelpful?

Fast forward a few weeks. The same customer walks into the store. The system flags them, not as a criminal but as someone who’s 'on a list'. A security colleague is quietly alerted. A polite conversation follows. 'Sorry, you’re not welcome in this store' - no accusation, no appeal, no obvious explanation required or given.

This isn’t a claim that such things are happening. It’s a thought experiment about power asymmetry. When identification systems operate invisibly, the person being identified has no way of knowing whether they’ve been flagged; why, by whom or how to challenge it and that’s where my discomfort creeps in. Not because technology exists, but because its boundaries aren’t always visible.

Most people are comfortable with rules when they’re clear, bounded and accountable. What unsettles them (me) is when systems quietly move from watching behaviour to judging individuals, especially when those judgments happen out of sight and this is why transparency matters so much to me. Not because retailers can’t be trusted (I love Morrisons) but because trust isn’t static. It has to be reinforced as capabilities grow.

If facial recognition systems are limited strictly to loss prevention with clear thresholds, deletion rules and no linkage to opinion, commentary or lawful behaviour, then saying so openly strengthens confidence. If there are hard lines that will never be crossed, articulating them matters because once technology exists that can act as a gatekeeper, the question people naturally ask isn’t “why did you install it?” It’s “what stops it being used differently later?” That isn’t cynicism, it’s systems literacy.

In a world where access decisions can be made in milliseconds by tools we never see, curiosity shouldn’t be mistaken for suspicion.

GDPR NOTE:


Under UK GDPR, facial recognition data counts as biometric data used for identification, which is classed as special category personal data. That puts it in a higher-risk bracket than standard CCTV footage, browsing history, or loyalty card data. In plain terms, it’s treated as sensitive because it’s uniquely tied to who you are. You can reset a password. You can cancel a card. You can’t reset your face. That doesn’t mean facial recognition is banned. It means organisations must meet a higher bar.

They must be able to show:

• a lawful basis for processing
• a specific purpose (not “just in case”)
• necessity and proportionality
• clear retention limits
• strong safeguards against misuse

Crucially, they must also carry out a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) before deploying such systems essentially a formal exercise in asking “should we be doing this, and what could go wrong?” More like this (digital ID) - link - more like this (shopping) - link 

(ENJ) LIVE MUSIC SETTING EMISSIONS STANDARDS

An industry wide report has revealed the carbon cost of gigs and festivals, while also pointing to bands, venues and events as powerful change making forces.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Climate Machine has collaborated with Coldplay, Warner Music Group, Live Nation, and Hope Solutions on the first ever comprehensive analysis of live music emissions.

Focusing on the UK and US, more than 80,000 individual events have been assessed for their greenhouse has output. This includes measuring logistics and haulage, energy, food & beverage concessions, fan travel, water, waste, artist and crew transportation. In the UK, the sector contributed 1.1% of total emissions.

Key takeaways include:

Fan travel is the largest driver of live music emissions, accounting for 77% in the U.K. and 62% in the U.S. across nearly all event types.

Food and beverage ranks next, contributing to 16.9% in the U.S. and 7.6% in the U.K., driven largely by animal-based products. A shift toward plant-based menus could reduce these emissions by 40% or more. When fan travel is excluded, trucking and freight emerge as major contributors–trucking makes up 14% of U.S. emissions, while air freight accounts for nearly 35% in the U.K.

Large-format shows, though fewer in number, generate a disproportionate share of total emissions, making festivals and stadium tours powerful catalysts for innovation and scalable climate solutions.

‘The research and analysis that has now resulted in the total greenhouse gas emissions attributable to live music in the UK and US marks a new anchor for meaningful actions. This detailed accounting of emissions sources and amounts guides a set of recommendations that point to a new era of emissions reductions and sustainability practices across all of live music,’ said Professor John Fernández and Dr. Norhan Bayomi, Co-Founders MIT Climate Machine.

The numbers were glared through a peer-reviewed research, existing industry reports and advanced analytical approaches. An Advisory Committee of more than 50 senior figures, including sustainability experts and music sector leaders, also contributed strategic insight.

‘This report gives the live music industry its clearest, quantified, picture yet of where touring impacts the planet most,’ said – Luke Howell, Founder & Director of Hope Solutions, MSI CEnv FISEP. ‘By taking data and evidence from across the sector, this study helps signal the need for practical, forward-thinking solutions that empower artists, promoters, and venues to focus on both measurement as well as take meaningful action to reduce their environmental impact.’

Image: Magnus Lunay / Unsplash - More from Environment Journal - link - more like this (gigs) - link - more like this (MIT) - link

(GUF) DON'T BLAME IT ON THE PUBLIC

Having wasted over forty years of my life in waste management, I feel broadly qualified, emotionally, operationally and possibly medically to say that when it comes to recycling, the less that’s left to the public, the better.

This is not an attack on people. People are generally well meaning, decent and keen to do the right thing. The problem is that they are also, when faced with a recycling bin, catastrophically unreliable.

The Recycling Station Thought Experiment;

Give the public a recycling station with a forty-foot image of a paper cup, and the words “PAPER CUP RECYCLING” in letters large enough to be seen from space, then stand back and within minutes you'll observe Coca-Cola cans, Evian plastic bottles and napkins that belong elsewhere being rammed in smugly, the depositor walking away quietly chuffed that they’ve just saved a small part of the planet thinking 'That’s my bit done'.

What they’ve actually done is contaminate the stream, increase processing costs and quietly sabotage the very system they believe they’re helping.

Over the years I have personally encountered rocks (actual lumps of stone) in confidential waste paper sacks; dog sh*t in paper and cardboard bins, banana skins in WEEE containers, greasy napkins, half-eaten chicken and biological mysteries in dry mixed recycling - at which point one is tempted to confront the perpetrator and ask 'What, exactly did you imagine we’d recycle this into'?

The public is not malicious, it's just hard-wired to contaminate recycling - not out of spite but because rules are complex, packaging lies, labels are inconsistent and wish-cycling feels virtuous. The greatest myth in modern waste policy is that better behaviour will fix a badly designed system. Shocker - it won’t.

The government, Defra and councils alike prefer to believe recycling fails because the public isn’t trying hard enough. That belief is comforting as it implies the system is sound and only the users are faulty. In reality, we’ve built a system that requires every household to behave like a trained materials technician while deliberately flooding the market with packaging that even professionals struggle to identify. That isn’t behaviour change, it’s abdication.

Do the Heavy Lifting Where It Belongs

The solution is not more posters, not friendlier icons, not interpretive recycling dance routines. The solution is to take the burden off the public entirely. Modern waste systems succeed when the intelligence sits infrastructure-side, not kerbside.

That means:

• Near-infrared scanners
• Optical sorters
• AI-assisted material recognition
• Trommels
• Magnets/Eddy current separators
• Ballistic separators

Robotic pickers don’t get bored, optimistic, pessimistic or distracted. These systems do not guess, improvise or feel proud. They simply sort correctly, relentlessly and without interpreters.

Countries that outperform the UK on recycling do not do so because their citizens are more virtuous. They do it better because the state intervenes upstream, not downstream.

Germany’s success is built on regulatory intolerance: strict producer obligations, fewer permitted materials, high landfill and incineration penalties and deposit systems that hurt if ignored. Compliance follows because ambiguity is designed out.

Japan assumes confusion is inevitable so it eliminates discretion. Standardised packaging, mandatory disassembly and legal responsibility sitting squarely with producers mean recycling works because non-compliance is socially and legally expensive.

South Korea didn’t ask people nicely to waste less food. It charged them for it, tracked it digitally, and enforced it, turning behaviour change into a by-product of system design.

Norway’s deposit return scheme works because it is simple, unavoidable and financially motivating. Return rates exceed 90% not because Norwegians care more but because the system removes the option not to comply.

The Netherlands assumes contamination will happen then engineers around it. High-tech facilities, aggressive material bans and minimal reliance on household perfection mean the public participates while the infrastructure performs.

Where This Leaves Britain

The UK is not hopeless but it remains politely conflicted - the UK government is reluctant to ban, nervous about enforcement, obsessed with nudging behaviour and terrified of upsetting producers. We ask households to compensate for poor packaging decisions made far upstream then act surprised when contamination follows. That's not the public's fault, it's governmental policy cowardice.

Traceability: The Real Prize

Things are, quietly, beginning to move. With digital packaging identification systems emerging and operational R&D being carried out by major waste operators, we are edging toward cradle to grave packaging identification, verified material flows and real funding entering the system. The vast majority of that money will land at council level where it will be least wisely spent but some of it will filter through into Simpler Recycling compliance, MRF upgrades, and expanded sorting capability which is where it actually matters.

Design for Contamination

Good waste systems don’t assume perfect behaviour; they assume distraction, confusion, laziness, optimism and the occasional act of bin-based nihilism; then they engineer around it. If your recycling system collapses because someone put a banana in the wrong bin, it was never robust in the first place.

My Final Thought

Recycling succeeds despite human behaviour, not because of it so let's stop blaming the public; stop pretending signage will save us and start building systems that assume correctly that someone, somewhere will always put the wrong thing in the wrong bin. More like this (the public) - link - more like this (waste sorting) - link

(POL) PESTICIDES - EU FAVOURS LESS EXAMINATION

The European Commission wants to do away with the ritualized examination of pesticides like glyphosate, which seem to pit politics against science every five to 10 years.

At first glance, the proposal to scrap routine expiry dates for most pesticide approvals appears to be a win for farmers and chemical companies alike, reducing uncertainty about continued access to widely used products.

The push is being driven by Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, whose simplification agenda has drawn scrutiny from health and environmental groups wary of loosening safeguards.

It’s “nothing short of a death sentence for farmers’ health, our children’s health, and the nature our food system depends on,” said Faustine Bas-Defossez, of the European Environmental Bureau. Time-limited approvals have long been a cornerstone of EU pesticide law, requiring substances to be re-evaluated regularly to reflect new scientific evidence on their health and environmental impacts.

The Food and Feed Safety Simplification Omnibus does away with that consistency.

While a small group of particularly high-risk pesticides would still face expiry dates and mandatory reassessments, the majority of chemicals would no longer be subject to routine renewals. The Commission argues that, for most products, the renewal cycle is slow and resource-intensive, tying up regulators who could instead assess newer, greener alternatives. Those delays, the Commission argues, “prevent a transition towards more sustainable active substances.”

A reduced workload for the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) would allow the regulators to dedicate resources to products that do need reevaluation, and to alternative products.

“The proposal recognizes that Europe lags behind other geographies and loses competitiveness as a result,” said Adam Sebesta, director of Rud Pedersen Public Affairs’ substance advocacy practice. Defaulting to unlimited approvals, he added, “would be one of the biggest changes to EU pesticide rules in the past 20 years."

Austrian center-right MEP Alexander Bernhuber said the move would give farmers more flexibility. “It cannot be the case that approvals in some countries outside the EU are completed within three years, while our farms have to wait more than ten years for new products,” he said. More of this article (Politico) - link - more like this (pesticides) - link - more like this (ECHA) - link

(MON) LAGOS' PESTICIDE LEGACY

The sun rises over lush farm fields of on the outskirts of Lagos. For more than 20 years, a farmer named Joe has tilled the land, coaxing life from the earth and reaping bountiful harvests. But here, beneath the surface of this idyllic scene, lies a complex web of challenges — chief among them, the relentless threat of pests. Joe’s story is one of trial and error, of desperation and loss, and of the unintended consequences of relying on chemical pesticides.

“I planted scent leaf [African basil] on my farmland, it started germinating … that was the beginning and first time planting such seedlings, so I didn’t know how tough it could be,” Joe recalls, his voice laced with a mix of frustration and resignation while speaking to Mongabay. He notes an abundance of aphids and caterpillars on his plants, which present a constant challenge.

“I came to my farmland one fateful morning and I saw a lot of insects flying around my farm,” he says. “They have taken over my scent leaf. That incident resulted in total loss of my investment because no one could buy that produce.”

That experience marked a turning point in his farming career. Desperate to protect his livelihood, Joe turned to chemical pesticides, convinced they held the key to safeguarding his crops.

But the pesticides that promised to save Joe’s crops have become a double-edged sword for him. The substances he used are called organochlorine pesticides, which have been linked to soil degradation, the decline of beneficial soil animals and even distortion of soil formation. These chemicals, designed to kill pests, can also harm humans and wildlife, contaminating water sources and food chains.

Joe shakes his head, recalling a disastrous day. “I had a batch of scent leaf ready to sell, and a customer promised to buy them all the next day. In my excitement, I decided to give them a little extra care with a heavy dose of pesticides to keep those pests away. I thought I’d be a hero, but it turned out to be a poisoned chalice. The chemicals ended up burning my entire scent leaf [crop]. I lost all my market and was left indebted.” more of this article (mongabay) - link - more like this (pesticides) - link - more like this (Nigeria) - link

(TDR) ZERO EMISSIONS FERRY LAUNCHES ON THE THAMES

The first fully electric zero-emissions ferry in the United Kingdom has been launched on the River Thames in London by operator Uber Boat by Thames Clippers.

Set to operate between Rotherhithe on the south of the River Thames and Canary Wharf on the northern side, the new electric ferry, named Orbit Clipper, will cross the river every 10 minutes on weekdays and 15 minutes on weekends.

Orbit Clipper’s roll-on/roll-off design enables automated docking on both sides and has space for 150 passengers as well as 100 bicycles. “The launch of Orbit Clipper is a significant milestone for sustainable transport in London,” said Sean Collins, CEO of Uber Boat Thames Clippers. “As the UK’s first all-electric, zero-emissions vessel, it represents our commitment to reducing the city’s carbon footprint while continuing to provide reliable and efficient river transport.

“Orbit Clipper not only showcases cutting-edge innovation but also sets a new standard for eco-friendly travel on the Thames, helping to shape a cleaner, greener future for Londoners and visitors alike.”

Thames Clippers was founded in 1999 and has operated a number of ferries under licence by the London River Services division of Transport for London (TfL). In 2020, Thames Clippers entered into a partnership with global rideshare giant Uber and renamed to Uber Boat by Thames Clippers, enabling tickets for ferry services to be purchased through the Uber app.

The new Orbit Clipper project was brought to life by a number of partners alongside Uber Boat by Thames Clippers. Funding from the Department for Transport and Innovate UK was critical to the project, while the ferry itself was designed by Australian ship builders Aus Ships and built by high-speed aluminium ship builder, Wight Shipyard Company.

Others involved in the birth of the Orbit Clipper include maritime civil engineering consultants, Beckett Rankine and electric infrastructure specialists, Aqua SuperPower.

It will take a few months before the Orbit Clipper is running the Rotherhithe to Canary Wharf route on its own, during which time it will operate in tandem with the route’s current vessel, Twinstar. But Uber Boat by Thams Clippers expects the Orbit Clipper to be operating exclusively on the route by the second quarter of next year. More of this article (The Driven) - link - more like this (shipping) - link - more like this (The Thames) - link

(GUF) NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY

1. A Message to Government

Large-scale fly-tipping in England has evolved from opportunistic criminality into organised, repeatable and easily scalable waste crime. Recent incidents demonstrate a clear operational template involving logistics expertise, high-volume processing equipment and systematic exploitation of regulatory gaps.

This is not primarily a failure of law, technology or policy intent, it's a failure of clear ownership and operational accountability. Multiple public bodies hold partial responsibility for waste regulation, enforcement, clearance and intelligence. No one agency is required to own the outcome and for this reason organised waste crime operates precisely in this space, intelligently, efficiently and profitably.

2. Not Our Responsibility - The Core Systemic Failure

The most consistent response following major fly-tipping incidents has been the assertion by agencies that the issue falls outside their statutory responsibility. This has been particularly visible in recent high profile cases where local authorities are responsible for clearance but not investigation; the Environment Agency regulates permitted sites and carriers but not landowners; Police forces may investigate organised crime but only once criminal thresholds are crossed and the Joint Unit for Waste Crime (JUWC) coordinates intelligence but has no enforcement authority - each agency operates within a clearly defined remit - waste does not.

The result is a system in which responsibility fragments instantly after an incident causing action to be delayed by jurisdictional debate, resulting in criminal operators benefitting from inertia rather than concealment. This is not accidental, it's structurally predictable, nay, relied on.

3. The Landowner Liability Trap

A critical but underexamined weakness in the current framework is the position of the landowner. In many large-scale fly-tipping cases landowners are left liable for clearance costs. Criminality is acknowledged but remediation is prioritised over investigation and reporting is delayed or limited. This creates a perverse incentive where the victim bears the cost and the offender benefits from silence and delay and the evidence disappears before enforcement action begins.

Organised waste crime groups actively select sites where landowners are least able to resist financially, legally or politically. This is not collateral damage, it's a known and exploited feature of the current system.

4. Carrier Licensing: Regulation Without Physical Control

Waste carrier licensing in England remains administrative rather than operational. At present, licences are attached to entities, not vehicles which can operate across regions with minimal real-time oversight. Subcontracting obscures accountability and ultimately enforcement relies on chance interception. This would be considered unacceptable in other regulated transport sectors.

Waste carrier licences should operate like operator licences, explicitly linked to vehicle registration numbers, operating bases, permitted waste types and defined geographic operating areas. All relevant agencies, Environment Agency, police, local authorities and DVSA should be able to enter a vehicle registration number and immediately see who is operating the vehicle, under which licence, from where, for which waste types and within which authorised area. This capability does not require new technology, It requires regulatory will.

5. International Comparison: South Korea’s Allbaro System

South Korea’s Allbaro waste tracking system demonstrates what effective, joined-up enforcement looks like in practice. Under Allbaro, waste movements are digitally logged at source; vehicles are directly linked to licensed operators; geographic operating areas are defined. Regulators have real-time visibility of movements allowing enforcement to take place before disposal (fly tip), not after discovery.

Crucially, Allbaro integrates the waste producers, transporters, treatment facilities and regulators - absolute 'cradle to grave'. There's no ambiguity over responsibility because accountability is embedded at every stage of the waste journey.

By contrast, the UK system allows waste to effectively “disappear” between collection and treatment. Vehicles often operate with minimal real-time traceability, fragmented oversight and weak accountability, enabling operators to distance themselves from responsibility once an incident occurs. Allbaro is not radical, it's just competent regulation.

6. JUWC: Coordination Without Command

The Joint Unit for Waste Crime (JUWC) is frequently cited as evidence of a robust response to organised waste crime but in practice JUWC has no enforcement powers, no operational control, no authority to compel action and takes no ownership of outcomes. Its role is strategic and intelligence-based, dependent entirely on other agencies choosing to act.

Where responsibility is contested, as it routinely is in fly-tipping cases — JUWC becomes a forum of talking heads, not a solution.

Organised crime does not fear coordination, it fears clear command and accountability.

7. Digital Waste Tracking: Necessary but Too Late

Digital Waste Tracking (DWT) will improve transparency, but only once it operates fully across all waste producers, carriers and treatment facilities. That level of coverage is unlikely before 2030 at best. Organised waste crime groups understand this perfectly and are exploiting the gap now. DWT must not be sold as a future solution to today’s enforcement failures.

8. Key Recommendations

I urge the government to consider designating a single national body with explicit responsibility for preventing and responding to large-scale fly-tipping. Role to cover;-

• Reform waste carrier licensing; linking licences directly to vehicle registrations and operating areas
• Provide real-time vehicle lookup access; to all enforcement agencies
• Rebalance landowner liability; ensuring victims of waste crime are not financially penalised for reporting
• Accelerate producer accountability; mandating auditable reporting of waste type, carrier, destination, and collection date
• Adopt proven international models; including Allbaro-style integrated tracking and enforcement

9. Closing Statement

Large-scale fly-tipping in England is no longer a failure of awareness or policy intent, it's a failure of responsibility, carefully defined, politely defended and systematically exploited. Until responsibility is singular, visible and enforceable, incidents like Kidlington will not be exception, it will be the business model (and it's getting better). More like this (fly tipping) - link - more like this (EA) - link - more like this (random) - link

How competent is the EA? - answer - here

(GUF) THE ECONOMY OF SCALE IN WASTE

The direction of travel - usually said with a straight face and the unspoken assumption that everyone can afford the ride. In waste management, scale is no longer a competitive advantage, it’s becoming a survival requirement.

Regulation isn’t free (despite how it’s announced), every new piece of legislation arrives wrapped in worthy language, transparency, accountability, decarbonisation, digitalisation. All laudable stuff but none of its free.

Each change brings costs that don’t show up neatly on a policy paper: new software platforms (and the consultants to implement them), training for staff who were already fully booked doing actual work, office process changes to satisfy audit trails, portals, uploads, dashboards, vehicle upgrades, telematics, emissions reporting, route optimisation, compliance teams growing faster than operations teams.

For large national and international operators, these costs are irritating but absorbable. Spread across thousands of customers, hundreds of vehicles and multinational balance sheets, they’re diluted into the background noise of business but for small and medium operators, that's just not possible.

The scale trap - smaller companies don’t lack competence; they don’t lack care; they lack the ability to dilute. When compliance costs rise, small operators have two options: absorb the cost, which quietly erodes already tight profit margins or pass it on, which makes them look expensive next to the national players who can undercut while still complying; neither is sustainable.

This is how regulation doesn’t ban small companies, it simply prices them out; not through incompetence; not through wrong doing but through arithmetic.

Fast forward to 2028 and the inclusion of waste incineration within the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) when carbon becomes a traded commodity sitting/imposing directly on gate fees. Incineration costs will no longer be just about tonnage and calorific value, they’ll be shaped by volume, internal carbon strategies, who owns the plant versus who feeds it, and who trades, who hedges and who gets squeezed.

This is where tit-for-tat pricing starts to matter. Operators with their own Energy-from-Waste facilities will inevitably be able to structure fees in ways that favour their own supply chains. Independent hauliers and smaller brokers will be left paying whatever the market decides that week with no leverage and no insulation. At that point, any small operator still standing will need one of two things; a huge broker client base to spread risk and cost or a buyer; there won’t be a third option.

This won’t be framed as a problem, it will be called market maturity, efficiency, professionalisation, improved compliance outcomes and whilst some of that will be true, regulation is increasingly being written in ways that favour scale, reward capital and quietly discourage independence. The result will be fewer operators, bigger players and less genuine competition.

The irony of all this change is that many small waste companies are better at recycling, closer to their customers and more honest about what can and can’t be done. They know their waste streams because they see them. They fix problems by picking up the phone and owning the issue, but honesty doesn’t amortise software licences.

I'm certainly not calling to halt regulation, just acknowledge the consequences. If we continue down this path, the future waste industry won’t be shaped by who understands waste best but by who can afford to comply longest and once scale becomes mandatory, choice quietly disappears. More like this (ETS) - link - more like this (waste) - link

(GUF) THE FLY TIPPING AWARD GOES TO....

In a field just off the A34 near Kidlington, practically waving distance from Thames Valley Police HQ, thousands of tonnes of rubbish have been skillfully deposited onto what was once a peaceful grassy field. Overnight, this quiet corner of Oxfordshire has become Mount Trashmore, the county’s newest man-made mountain range.

Drone and satellite images show a rubbish mountain 60 metres long, 15 metres wide and up to 12 metres high. Some reports even stretch that to 150 metres.

Locals and campaigners describe it as a 'biodiversity nuclear bomb' which sounds like something DEFRA might copyright and trial in a future plea for funding PowerPoint. The dump sits on a floodplain beside the River Cherwell which also feeds the Thames - why ruin one river when you can fuck up two?

Leachate has already been seen oozing toward a ditch, which is nature’s way of saying 'consider yourselves warned'. Should fire break out we'd doubtless see a spectacular airborne cocktail of burning foam and melted plastic that could feasible smoulder for months. 

This man planned, man made disaster could cost more to clean than the district council’s entire annual budget which means if the culprits aren’t caught we, the taxpayers, will be paying for someone else’s criminal entrepreneurship; and we Brits are good at that. One industry expert reckons the criminal masterminds behind this could have pocketed over half a million pounds proving once and for all that crime really does pay, especially when the regulators are busy putting desist stickers on gates and sending sternly worded letters.

This wasn’t a couple of wayward lads in an old white Transit. This is shredded waste (looks like RDF); bulk haulage logistics, regular runs on night shifts abusing a floodplain hidden from the road by trees - it's wrong, but it's so clever. Whoever organised this knows the industry. They knew what to move, how to move it and crucially, which agencies probably wouldn’t move themselves.

The Environment Agency has commandingly declared the site a 'critical incident' and issued a cease-and-desist after the tipping had finished. A 39-year-old man from Guildford was arrested and released.

In summary, the EA didn’t stop it, Cherwell & Oxfordshire Councils didn’t stop it, National Highways didn’t stop all those trucks rolling by under lamp posts; the Joint Unit for Waste Crime (hands up who knew that existed) didn’t stop it. To their credit, the EA has now proposed sandbags because as everyone knows, sandbags fix everything.

Organised criminal gangs are dumping millions of tonnes of waste across the UK every year. Kidlington simply raised the bar, quite literally, by 12 metres. This isn’t just a failure, it’s a coordinated team effort of failure; a national, multi-agency, top-to-bottom refusal to join the dots even when those dots were 150 metres long and filled with old sofas.

It is, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, hard not to admire the technical execution. It has brilliant project management; supply chain finesse and incredible operational discipline,

What’s really tragic is not the shameless criminal genius, it’s how easy they made us look like mugs. More like this (littering) - link - more like this (Oxford) - link - more like this (random) - link

(IVE) EUROPE'S TOXIC LANDFILLS

Locations of more than 60,000 landfills pinpointed across Europe in first-of-its-kind analysis, uncovering a multitude of potential threats to ecosystems and communities.

Thousands of landfills across Europe lie in flood-risk zones, areas which could endanger drinking water or sensitive conservation sites, Investigate Europe and Watershed Investigations can reveal. The largest landfill mapping exercise ever undertaken across the continent has found that many of these sites risk leaching toxic chemicals into waterways, bringing a potential cocktail of harms to humans and surrounding ecosystems.

There are estimated to be up to 500,000 landfills scattered across the EU and UK, with roughly 90 per cent established before pollution control regulations. Their exact locations, however, remain broadly unknown, largely due to a lack of consistent data and the fact that many sites have been covered over.

Analysis of data obtained from Freedom of Information requests, government agencies and public sources pinpointed the locations of more than 60,000 sites. Many are likely to be historic, pre-dating the European Union’s 1999 Landfills Directive, meaning that they could lack modern-day containment measures, such as the use of protective lining to prevent leakages of harmful waste.

“Europe is obviously ignoring its landfill crisis,” Jutta Paulus, a German MEP with the Green grouping, said in response to the findings. “The hundreds of thousands of legacy sites, many in flood- or erosion-prone zones, remain a dangerous blind spot.”

From the ‘forever chemicals’ seeping out of a former landfill in Greece’s tourist-friendly Taygetos Mountains to the landfill debris crumbling from parts of Britain’s coastlines, the investigation represents a first-of-its-kind study into the state of Europe’s waste sites.


Among those mapped, almost 30 per cent were found to be in areas with a significant risk of flooding, raising the possibility of toxic waste entering water systems and surrounding land. More than 3000 sites exist in protected conservation areas, leaving ecosystems and natural habitats at risk of pollution. Thousands more were found where groundwater has poor chemical status, something that landfills have possibly exacerbated. In addition, almost 10,000 were identified in drinking water zones across France, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy.

Those most visibly at risk are situated along the coast. The analysis found 346 landfills in coastal erosion zones in England, Wales and France, while more than 250 sites elsewhere across Europe are within 200 metres of the coast, potentially at risk of erosion or exposure from storm surges.

“With increasing frequency and magnitudes of floods and erosion from climate change, there’s a greater risk of these wastes washing into our environment,” said Patrick Byrne of Liverpool John Moores University, adding that harmful materials disseminating from the landfills bring other threats. “We know plastics are accumulating in wildlife, humans and environments and there’s emerging evidence of negative health impacts.” In the UK, it is estimated that 80 per cent of the population live within two kilometres of known landfill sites. More of this article (Investigate Europe) - link - more like this (landfill) - link - more like this (pollution) - link