More than 70 items of clothing are thrown away every year from the average wardrobe, a new survey has found. In a survey by British Wool, nearly two-thirds of people admitted to throwing items of clothing into landfill that could be recycled or sent to a charity shop. The figures suggest an extremely high turnover in the wardrobes of the average shopper. The survey found the average person owns just 76 items of clothing but throws away 72 every year. The average British person buys more new items of clothing every year than any other European country. Charity shop donations may not solve the [...]

Suez UK Environment Limited, which failed to meet its environmental obligations and breached the conditions of its environmental permit, submitted an Enforcement Undertaking to the Environment Agency, which has now been accepted. An Enforcement Undertaking is a voluntary offer made by companies and individuals to make amends for their offending. The Environment Agency was made aware of nuisance odours at the landfill site in 2015 following thousands of complaints to its national incident hotline from communities in Ryton, Stargate, Stella and Crookhill. Subsequent investigations found that the cause of the odours was due to excessive landfill gas emissions, produced by rotting waste. Enforcement [...]

The owner of a landfill site at the centre of complaints over strong odours has dropped an appeal against a council order. Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council served a statutory nuisance abatement notice on Walleys Quarry Limited, based in Silverdale, Staffordshire, in 2021. The site emitted hydrogen sulphide, a smelly and noxious gas which at times had been found to exceed guidelines. Both sides say they have reached an out-of-court agreement over the order. It means the notice remains in place and the firm has agreed to pay £400,000 towards the council’s costs and £60,000 towards ongoing monitoring of the site, the local authority says. Walleys Quarry Limited [...]

The Government will not set a target for a reduction in single-use plastics, but will publish a report on reforming waste exemptions that can hide criminal activity. These announcements came from environment minister Trudy Harrison in response to a series of parliamentary questions. Labour’s Beth Winter asked if there would be a specific target set for the reduction of the use of single-use plastic by 50% by 2025. Harrison replied: “We have no plans to set a target for the reduction in single use plastic. “We want to set an Environment Act 2021 target in the area of resource efficiency and waste reduction [...]