Dr Adam Read MBE, Chief Sustainability & External Affairs Officer at SUEZ, shares his thoughts on whether the term ‘waste’ is putting off young people from the sector, how the sector should react if net zero policies are scrapped, and why a more compelling narrative is needed to attract the next generation of talent to green industries.

Throughout June, Circular Online is exploring how to make the resources and waste sector more attractive to the next generation of talent.

In a wide-ranging and insightful conversation, Dr Adam Read MBE discussed his thoughts on the challenges to achieving this goal and what changes could have the biggest impact.

Often people in the sector say they fell into their roles and ended up loving them. What steps can be taken to ensure resources and waste is a sector of choice for young professionals?

This rings true, and that’s because the sector and the opportunities it offers were not featured in schools or universities, neither in class nor as field trips nor with careers advisors. This has begun to change, but not quickly enough.

Firstly, we need to showcase the broad range of great careers available in the sector, profiling the transferable nature of the skills you can develop, which will make you attractive in many other walks of life. Looking ahead, we must identify the roles we will need in 3, 5 or 10 years and the associated skills.

Importantly, we must demonstrate that our sector is not ‘dirty’ or simply end of pipe, rather it offers good pay, with great training and development opportunities, and can be both technically and emotionally fulfilling as part of the transition to sustainable lifestyles and one planet living.

But we need the support of the government and the curricula, of school and university careers advisors and the major employers to make this happen!

Is terminology like ‘waste’ putting young people off pursuing a career in the sector? How does language need to change to improve sector attractiveness? 

Totally! The incoming CIWM President Vicki Hughes is spot on when she talks about the negative impression that the word will conjure up for many young people; it certainly doesn’t shout meaningful employment, quality careers or personal satisfaction.

If it were as simple as replacing waste with resources, we might have done this a decade ago, but the term is less familiar to many. We need to ask real people – those looking at their careers, their education choices and their development – what they would react positively to, what would attract them to our sector, a sector in rapid transition, with so much potential and opportunity.

Is it about the circular economy? Our research suggests that’s unlikely. Is it about recycling, for some yes, but it is so much more than a phrase or word, it is a changing of the narrative about the sector that is most needed, outlining its role in creating a vibrant and resilient, resource efficient economy, one that supports decarbonisation, protects nature and creates shared value for local communities.

The incoming CIWM President’s campaign will help drive a new momentum around this in the coming year!

Is the link between sustainability, climate change, and net zero, and the sector widely understood? If this was clearer, do you think this would attract more talent to the sector?

Currently, I would have to say no, it isn’t. As a professional geographer, former university lecturer in environmental policy and management, and a STEM Ambassador, I can see these links and have been looking at them since the early 1990s.

So much of the work our sector has been delivering since then has been about environmental protection, reducing carbon impacts, managing harmful pollutants and protecting communities.

The evidence is there, the data is compelling, but we are failing to join these dots when it comes to the curriculum at secondary level and above, and to a lesser degree in our research and development programmes.

We need to demonstrate to the public at large the need to go beyond recycling, that the sector is working hard to drive resource efficiency, reducing the demand on our precious natural resources, and the need to rethink our throw-away society.

Maintaining the momentum built since Sir David Attenborough’s Blue Planet and using it to reposition our sector and the work it does in the public eye is critical.

You’ve previously written about the need to create a better narrative about the career opportunities of working in green industries. What should this narrative be?

I think this is clear, and I have been banging the drum since my Presidential Report was published in June 2021.

We need the next generation and the people guiding them – parents, school-leavers, graduates and careers advisors to put any preconceived ideas they might have about our sector to one side – landfill is increasingly a thing of the past, and a whole unseen world sits behind the collection services people experience day to day.

The sector has moved on and continues to advance at an unprecedented rate,  bringing huge opportunities for those embarking on a career in the industry.

We need a mix of new skills, new capabilities, and new application, but we also need people with passion, people who can work alone and as part of a team, and results-driven people who can disrupt and make change happen.

As we grow our recycling capabilities, expand our recovery operations, and mainstream repair, refurb and reuse we will see a new generation of material specialists, handlers, and reprocessors blossom.

And we will also need advanced biologists, chemists and engineers to build the facilities of tomorrow, data scientists to drive innovation and efficiency, and entrepreneurs to drive new circular business models.

How exciting is all that? But to make the kind of progress that I was predicting back in 2021, we need to tell our story in a way that reaches and resonates with the next generation.

What skills does the sector need to attract in the short, medium and long term?

Right now, we need the drivers and front-line crews essential to the successful implementation of Simpler Recycling.

Looking ahead, we will need more staff at our HWRCs to intercept materials for recycling, repair and reuse, and engineers to build the technologies being rolled out to manage our materials, including AD, advanced MRFs and specialist battery recycling.

In the medium term, the focus will be on segregating, handling and upcycling materials, with a boom in repair and refurb for both electricals and furniture. There will also be a need for more technology innovation, from AI sorting to reverse logistics, just-in-time collections and of course, carbon capture.

In the longer term, the focus will be on circular business models, rental, leasing, and takeback – providing more bespoke services, whilst targeting niche material streams for reprocessing and working more closely with designers so that products and packaging are better aligned to the services we offer.

And of course, we have the unknowns – POPs, PFAs, vapes are just some of the materials we weren’t planning on managing just a decade ago. The sector deals with stress well and adaptability and responsiveness will be key attributes of the workforce in 2040.

CIWM called the withdrawal of funding for 16 apprenticeship standards by the UK Government a ‘missed opportunity’. What was your reaction to the plans?

I too was disappointed, given some of these roles are a natural entry point to the world of waste management and provide a valuable early career path.

However, I have been asking for a fresh approach to the Apprenticeship Levy for many years, so I welcome the government’s plans to utilise the budget to get young people into work.

But I fear the government completely missed the opportunity to support the green skills agenda, focusing on energy primarily, which, at the time, I said was short-sighted.

I continue to work with CIWM and Government to get the balance right, and Skills England is a key body for ensuring our sector, the skills needed, and the funding support are better aligned going forward.

How can government better support recruitment in green industries? Is it realistic to expect this policy support, especially with the polls indicating an explicitly anti-net-zero Reform-government winning the next election?

Government needs to complete the invaluable work undertaken by the Green Jobs Delivery Group that stalled when the last election was announced.

The cross-sector body had not only mapped out the skills and competencies needed to deliver net zero in more than a dozen sectors, but it had also assessed the transferable skills and the timing of any significant upskilling and employment, providing a clear picture of what roles would be needed when and where.

Unfortunately, this sits on a shelf in DEFRA, and whilst DESNZ have ploughed on with aspects of this work for the energy sector, the wider work and insight remain in limbo, growing more dated by the week!

The government needs to look at the skills work in both Scotland and Wales to see what is possible in terms of creating a credible view of future need, which provides trade bodies, employers and training institutes with clarity on the future demand for these skills and roles.

Alongside this, government must create policy certainty and stability as this will enable the likes of SUEZ to plan accordingly – new contracts, new sites, new technologies, new services, new people and new skills.

If Reform is successful, then as a sector we will have to pivot and demonstrate that the green skills needed are critical skills that will underpin local and regional economic growth.

Some of this narrative became evident in the last year of the Conservative administration and is seen in the Labour Government’s drive for growth – our sector is all about jobs, economic benefits and community wellbeing. 

In the context of energy price rises, global resource risks and the opportunities for onshoring materials and jobs, this is a compelling narrative for any party’s manifesto.

What actions can the sector take to attract talent if there is no government appetite to provide support? 

We’re not seeking financial support; we need policy certainty and a willingness to help make the sector more visible and more accessible for schools and colleges. In that scenario, the sector can do much of the heavy lifting.

If we know the goal posts won’t be changing any time soon, we can commit to recruitment programmes, training and development projects, apprenticeships, internships and mentoring programmes to build the workforce of tomorrow.

But if potential employees aren’t looking at our sector, then these programmes are inherently destined to underperform, which is why government can help through policy clarity and curriculum visibility – we stand ready to do the rest! 

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Vape recycling across Worcestershire has almost doubled in a year following the disposable vape ban, new figures from Worcestershire County Council show.

The amount of vapes collected at the county’s Household Recycling Centres rose from 1.67 tonnes in 2024 to 3.30 tonnes in 2025, figures show.

However, the council warned that vapes and small electricals are still being found every day at the recycling sorting facility in Norton, Worcestershire.

Councillor Josh Robinson, Worcestershire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment and Communities, said that the significant increase in vape recycling is encouraging, but warned that too many vapes are still ending up in household waste and recycling bins.

Freedom of Information responses showed that across the UK, there were 1760 battery-linked fires in 2025, a 147% increase in just three years. This means UK fire brigades are tackling fires caused by a lithium-ion battery at a rate of once every five hours.

“Unfortunately, we have seen fires at waste facilities caused by batteries from items such as vapes being placed in general waste or household recycling,” Robinson said.

“These incidents can result in extensive damage to vehicles and facilities and, most importantly, put collection crews and site staff at risk.”

In the year since the disposable vape ban was introduced on 1 June 2025, the number of vapes thrown away each week has decreased from 8.2 million to 6.3 million.

Last week, waste companies called for a £5 deposit to be charged on vapes as an incentive to dispose of them properly.

Biffa, the UK’s largest waste company, suggested the deposit should be £5, which is considerably higher than what will be charged as part of the UK’s deposit return scheme (DRS) for drinks containers.

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Climate communicators risk overwhelming people or placing too much guilt on individuals if they fail to acknowledge the emotional impact of climate change, according to Linda Aspey from the Climate Psychology Alliance.

Speaking on CIWM’s Beyond Waste podcast, Aspey said climate communication needs to move beyond simply giving people more facts or telling individuals what they should do.

In the episode, titled Climate Emotions: How Climate Change Makes Us Feel and What We Do With It, CIWM’s Trang Dang spoke to Aspey about climate psychology, eco-emotions and the role of communication in helping people respond to the climate crisis.

Aspey said emotions such as anxiety, anger, grief, despair and helplessness can all shape the way people respond to climate change, but warned that these feelings can become overwhelming if they are suppressed, dismissed or left unspoken.

She said emotions such as despair, anger and rage can “fuel people into action”, but added that people need ways to acknowledge and talk about what they are feeling.

During the conversation, Aspey also warned against climate messaging that places too much responsibility on individual behaviour change, rather than recognising the need for wider systems change.

Society can, and certainly those in power, can use language that passes the responsibility entirely to us. That we have to reduce our carbon footprint, so to speak. Now those actions do matter, but we obviously need big systems change.

She said: “Society can, and certainly those in power, can use language that passes the responsibility entirely to us. That we have to reduce our carbon footprint, so to speak. Now those actions do matter, but we obviously need big systems change.

“And that can leave us with the burden of guilt. So that kind of language can be wrong and very harmful.”

Aspey said climate communicators often face a difficult balance between conveying the seriousness of the crisis and avoiding messaging that makes people feel powerless.

She said different messages work for different people, adding that shocking information may prompt one person to act but cause another to switch off entirely.

The podcast also explored the limitations of a “facts first” approach to climate communication. Aspey said communication has often been treated as an “information deficit”, where people are expected to act once they are given enough evidence.

However, she said this does not work for everyone, particularly when climate information threatens people’s sense of safety, identity or connection.

“What people want to know is, first of all, they need to understand what it means for their safety,” she said. “Fundamentally, we’re hardwired to seek safety and we’re hardwired to seek connection.”

Aspey said building resilience in response to climate change should not be understood simply as “bouncing back” from disruption, but as something communities develop together.

She described resilience as “the glue that holds people together”, arguing that people need spaces to talk about difficult feelings, manage conflict and build what she called “cultures of care”.

The episode also considered the role of storytelling, language, nature connection and the psychological challenge of moving away from a culture built around endless growth.

Aspey said the Climate Psychology Alliance offers support spaces, youth spaces, climate café listening circles and training for organisations and communities.

The full episode of Beyond Waste is available to listen to now here. 

Or watch the episode on YouTube.

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Five people have been ordered to pay £6822 after they dumped the remains of a cannabis farm in Neath Valley.

Four men and a woman were prosecuted by Neath Port Talbot Council for their part in the fly-tipping. They were ordered to pay a combined total of £6822 by Swansea Magistrates Court.

Cabinet Member for Streetscene, Cllr Scott Jones, commented: “We have beautiful areas of forestry and countryside throughout the Neath Port Talbot County and people should be able to enjoy it responsibly without encountering dangerous deposits like this.”

“We hope this sends a strong message that regardless of how minor you think your role is in the illegal disposal of waste, you will still be held responsible.”

The waste was disposed of illegally on land in the Rheola forestry in the Neath Valley, which is owned by Natural Resources Wales.

NRW discovered correspondence within the waste that had been dumped on their land that pointed back to the defendents.

The combination of the document left at the scene, CCTV, and witness accounts resulted in the successful prosecution of five people in total.

During an earlier hearing at Swansea Magistrates Court in February 2026, four of the defendants pleaded guilty to the following offences.

Ian Jenkins pleaded guilty to an offence in relation to duty of care by failing to ensure the waste is disposed of lawfully.

Stephen Powell pleaded guilty to being the person in control of the vehicle used to unlawfully deposit controlled waste.

Keiron Powell and Darcy Thomas pleaded guilty to offences of unlawfully depositing controlled waste and transporting waste without a waste carriers’ licence.

Anthony Jones and another male pleaded not guilty and their cases were listed for trial. Jones was found was guilty of an offence of failing to ensure that the waste was disposed of lawfully, while the other man was acquitted.

The court also ordered the tipper vehicle to be forfeited to Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council. The Council is now assessing the vehicle’s condition and it may end up being crushed.

James Roseblade, Land Management Senior Officer for NRW, said: “We welcome the court’s decision in this case and hope it sends a clear message that waste-related crime will not be tolerated and will be punished and NRW and its partners will continue to take appropriate enforcement action against those who break the law.”

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The UK’s green economy is worth £105bn and generating ‘high-wage jobs’ across every UK nation and region, research from the Confederation of British Industry finds.

Despite being often framed as a cost or a constraint on the economy, the research found that net zero generates around £105bn in Gross Value Added (GVA) and supports 1.1m full-time equivalent jobs.

GVA is a way of measuring how much value a business, industry, or region contributes to the country’s economy.

According to the analysis, for every £1 of economic value created directly by net zero firms, a further £1.85 is generated across the wider UK economy through supply chains and household spending.

Established in 1965, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is the UK’s largest British business interest group.

The analysis, produced by CBI Economics, found the net zero sector supports jobs in energy, manufacturing, construction, engineering, and professional services.

The sector is underpinned by more than 23,500 businesses, according to the research, over 96% of which are small or medium-sized enterprises.

The CBI said that net zero is one of the UK’s ‘most productive and geographically distributed industrial sectors’.

Louise Hellem, Chief Economist at CBI, said net zero is a ‘significant and growing’ part of the UK’s industrial base. 

“What stands out is not just the scale, but the breadth. Net zero-related activity is embedded across energy, manufacturing, construction, engineering and professional services, with activity present in every nation and region of the UK,” Hellem said.

However, she warned the opportunity is not guaranteed.

“The ability to convert investment pipelines into delivered projects, develop the necessary skills, and create a stable environment for business investment will be critical to determining how much value the UK ultimately captures,” she continued.

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A South London incinerator has been granted permission to process tens of thousands of extra tonnes of waste each year despite breaching its environmental permit 916 times between 2022 and 2024.

Viridor Ltd can now increase the amount of waste it treats at its Beddington Energy-from-Waste (EfW) facility to 382,286 tonnes annually, an increase of almost 35 tonnes.

The move comes despite opposition from residents living in the area around the site who have complained of unpleasant odours coming from the facility and an increase in lorry traffic.

Chair of Sutton Council’s Environment & Sustainable Transport Committee, Christopher Woolmer, said they were ‘deeply disappointed’ by the decision.

“We argued that the site and plant lack the capacity to process the proposed amount of waste,” Woolmer continued.

“We are also concerned about Viridor’s repeated permit breaches, which last year resulted in a downgrading of their compliance rating.”

A Compliance Assessment Report (CAR) from the Environment Agency found that Viridor breached the site’s environmental permit 916 times between 2022 and 2024.

Viridor, which self-reported the non-compliance, said the breaches were caused by a third-party contractor.

The Environment Agency said it was satisfied Viridor’s application met all requirements under relevant environmental legislation and provides a ‘high-level of protection to the environment and human health’.

Matt Higginson, environment manager for the Environment Agency in Kent, South London and East Sussex, said environmental permits put ‘stringent conditions’ on waste sites.

“The environmental permit for Beddington is set at levels to protect human health and the environment,” Higginson continued.

“Emissions from the plant are monitored around the clock, and the data is rigorously assessed to identify if any breaches to the permit occur.”

The permit has also been updated to include an emission point associated with Waste Transfer Station (WTS) shredding equipment.

Planning permission for the Beddington energy-recovery facility was granted by Sutton Borough Council in May 2013.

This application also included accepting this new volume of waste and a ‘very large number’ of vehicle movements.

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Sophie Thomas OBE, Founding Partner at etsaW Ventures, gives an inside look at an innovative pilot programme aiming to connect the design and waste management sectors and increase circularity.

On a crisp day in March, a group of designers sit around a table in the Brighton Waste House staring at a pile of broken and unwanted electronics. This was the first outing for the Design Skills for Embedding Circularity programme design cohort.

This pilot programme, backed by CIWM, CEI, Design Council, WRAP and Urge Collective, is a direct response to the call set out by Tim Walker in his presidential report back in 2024 when he asked: ‘Is waste a failure of design?’.

The report recommended:

• increased communication and learning between the Design and Waste Management sectors;
• identifying key sector responsibilities, including the upskilling of designers to increase knowledge and credibility;
• the creation and sharing of third-party verified resources;
• the creation of feedback loops through the waste management sector into brands/manufacturers/designers on key problematic items;
• and the highlighting of the economic impact of waste disposal on the public sector.

So, we have embarked on an investigative pilot to explore effective ways to foster good communication between the sectors. A cohort of 15 practising industrial designers was selected from applicants who responded to our call for UK participants.

Using the focus areas set out by the Circular Economy Task Force, it focused on hot topics like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and reuse and mixed waste streams, and the final cohort selected worked in furniture, electronics, mobility, and packaging.

The programme has been developed by Alexie Sommer from Urge Collective and myself to run through two main phases and an output presentation, building on design residency methodologies from The Great Recovery programme that ran between 2012-2016 and Urge’s facilitation expertise.

The first is immersion (what we call ‘seeing is believing’), with three months of facility visits and expert webinars. The second is response, a 6-week design sprint that allows for deeper research dives into some of the challenges observed, encouraging collaboration across the sectors.

Insights from both phases will be fed back into the industries and government, discussing the outcomes, showing case studies, and demonstrating best practice for moving forward and scaling up.

Doing electronic teardowns with CIWM President David Greenfield and his team from Tech TakeBack was just the beginning. Since then, the team have travelled across the UK visiting major waste recovery facilities, speciality recyclers, paper mills, and manufacturing businesses.

Among the facilities that opened up their doors and gave us access to their teams were DS Smith, Sherbourne Recycling, Decathlon, Biffa, Enfinium, and SUEZ.

But what difference does it really make to watch a trommel toss out paper from glass, or see a robot pick the flexible plastics off a belt? Does experiencing the impact of an MRF fire started by a vape device, or getting the low down on which plastic type is not economically worth sorting, change the way we design our products?

My answer is that it should do. As an industry, we forget that most people don’t see how waste is handled and know how value is recovered from bags of recycling.

Designers are also not taught seriously about end-of-life and are not encouraged to consider it when designing. They are often told that they hold no influence, and when they do want to know more, they don’t know where to source good data.

There is a huge reliance on information put out by material suppliers when specifying for new products and packaging, which could be described as so generic it’s closer to greenwashing.

Many of the products that the programme cohort design would (or should) not end up in a household’s municipal recycling. So where do they go? It was only quite far into the programme when we realised we had not yet seen the answer to this question.

Small electrical products would hopefully end up in a WEEE bin, located in specific shops, streets or HWRCs. That is if you can find one. The WEEE bin locator was often found to be incorrect or out of date, sending people on wild goose chases to find them.

What about the products that don’t include electronics? Household products (cookware, cups and plates, toys, furniture, etc) are less visible in our end-of-life system. If they are lucky, they would end up getting re-routed back into the system whilst going through a reuse hub like the one run by Suez in Manchester.

If they didn’t have vintage or resale value, they would end up at the HWRCs in the unrecyclable or black bin skips, or confusion may see them thrown into a recycling bin. It was a shock to the group to find out that a big chunk of the things they design may well end up in the incineration pile.

The resource and waste industry is in continual reaction mode to legislation shifts, economic market impacts, and the continual influx of new products, where they have no direct input or opportunity to help reduce end-of-life impact.

Packaging and products are evolving all the time and will often have big R&D budgets with briefs that emphasise better ergonomics, more efficient material usage, and customer satisfaction. Why is the waste management sector not included in this process?

The programme has been interspersed with expert conversations, covering topical subjects of simpler recycling, standards and regulations, technology advances and limitations, fluidity and economics of secondary material markets, and design potential in recycling and circularity.

This level of access for designers has arguably not happened since The Great Recovery, but we can see that it is still very much needed if we do want to shift towards more circularity in our systems.

We spent days deep in household waste streams at several different MRFs across the country, understanding the UK nuances in our infrastructure and collection systems.

Seeing it in action with your own eyes and hearing from those on the ground is completely different to reading about the process. It’s not only eye-opening, but there is a huge amount of myth-busting happening along the way.

Many more designers are now considering substituting plastics for ‘recyclable’ materials or bio-alternatives, but the arguments for or against are still very fluid. If designers do consider using ‘recyclable’ materials in their design, they believe it will be recycled, but our visits showed that this is not always the case.

A biodegradable material on a product will not go through anaerobic digestion (AD) if there is no provision for it to do so (we also may not have the correct conditions in the UK for it to break down). It’s very probable that wherever the product gets thrown away, it will eventually go to incineration.

The programme is now moving into the next phase, and the designers are ready to start tackling the big challenges they observed through the design sprint. Their site visit observations, information gathered, and connections made will inform the enquiries the designers will tackle during the sprint.

In parallel, partners Biffa and Decathlon have set sprint challenges. These range from:

• designing approaches that prevent vapes from entering household waste and recycling streams;
• demonstrator concepts that enable easier disassembly and recovery of high-value components from small electronics, especially lithium batteries;
• how to design out festival tent waste;
• and how to design a practical and scalable reusable packaging system for buy-back/resale programmes.

Interest in the Design Skills for Embedding Circularity programme has come from across the UK, Europe and from as far afield as Australia. There is a huge demand for this type of hands-on, immersive professional development from both sectors. Insights from the programme will be shared during an exhibition and symposium in the autumn.

The programme has been designed as an immersion into the challenges around investigating how we can build closer relationships, communications and systems with the design and waste sectors to make a circular economy really start to work.

More about the programme, visits and expert speakers can be found here.

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A new global symbol designed to identify reusable packaging and reuse systems worldwide has been unveiled today.

The new symbol was launched by PR3: The Global Alliance to Advance Reuse and its international coalition of businesses, governments, NGOs, designers and reuse operators.

In 2025, the Rebrand Reuse global design initiative set out to create a universal symbol for reuse systems and reusable packaging.

The initiative received 236 submissions from 29 countries across every continent except Antarctica and was selected through an international review, consumer research and legal evaluation process.

The winning symbol was created by Nicole Ascanio Rodriguez and Juan Navarrete, designers and co-founders of Epigrama Studios, based in Bogotá, Colombia.

The design was selected following multiple rounds of jury review and global market testing involving 1,275 respondents across 17 countries. It was also evaluated against criteria, including distinctiveness, memorability, and cultural adaptability.

It was also specifically appraised on whether the symbol could be clearly distinguished from the existing recycling symbol and its ‘chasing arrows’ Möbius loop.

The symbol is now being introduced on a diverse range of reusables and reuse infrastructure.

Juan Navarrete, Co-Founder & Designer, Epigrama Studios, said: “We wanted to create a symbol that communicates return, continuity and circulation – something simple enough to travel globally, but meaningful enough to represent a new relationship with materials and waste.”

“The symbol understands time not as a straight line, but as a spiral: returning, restoring and beginning again.”

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SUEZ has signed a £396 million, ten-year contract to operate and manage the Milton Keynes Waste Recovery Park (MKWRP).

Since September 2023, SUEZ has delivered household collections and street cleansing for Milton Keynes City Council.

The MKWRP facility treats up to 133,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste each year from Milton Keynes and West Northamptonshire and creates power equivalent to that used by 10% of Milton Keynes’ homes.

SUEZ has also announced it has signed an interim contract to operate the NESS energy from waste facility in Aberdeen.

The NESS facility can process up to 150,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste each year, which feeds a Combined Heat and Power facility with the ability to provide up to 10 MWth of heat to support Aberdeen City Council’s district heat network.

SUEZ is also starting construction on a new anaerobic digestion plant near Ellington in Northumberland.

Once operational towards the end of 2027, SUEZ says the plant will be able to process up to 50,000 tonnes of food waste annually.

The company also announced that construction is underway on a new battery recycling plant for large-format lithium batteries, which are often used in electric cars and e-scooters.

This project relocates the existing facility in Luton, operated by SUEZ since December 2023, to larger premises in Northamptonshire, which SUEZ says will increase capacity to 22,000 tonnes per year.

Xavier Girre, CEO of SUEZ, commented: “These new contracts with long-term clients and the development of critical facilities illustrate our commitment to serve our clients at all stages of the waste value chain: from collection, sorting, recycling, to thermal treatment, anaerobic digestion and gasification of biowaste.”

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Exchange For Change has confirmed the fees that will be paid to return point operators when England, Scotland and Northern Ireland launch their Deposit Return Scheme in October 2027.

The Return Handling Fee (RHF) is a payment made to retailers who operate a return point for consumers to return their in-scope beverage containers.

The fees will operate on a tiered basis across manual and automatic return points, and will provide for small to large volumes of returned containers.

Exchange For Change, the industry-led organisation delivering the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, has set the RHF at:

Manual return points

• 3p per container.

Automatic return points

• Tier 1 – 5p per container, up to 225,000 in-scope items returned annually.
• Tier 2 – 1.3p per container, for annual in-scope returns in excess of 225,000.

Exchange For Change says the RHF will be reviewed early next year, prior to the scheme going live, and will continue to be reviewed annually to take account of new data available from producers and retailers.

The annual review will use real data collected during the operation of the scheme, which will build a profile of the RHF and factors that impact it.

Russell Davies, Exchange For Change CEO, said: “We have taken on board a wide range of feedback provided by retailers, producers and trade bodies, and established a return handling fee that reflects the complexities of the UK retail landscape and ensures the scheme remains in balance.”

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