Politics

| The government of Ireland is looking to set up a regulator for the domestic waste industry. This is being considered as one of the options to prevent increases in household collection charges.

| A research by US-based environmental group Basel Action Network found that Hong Kong has become a dumping ground for US electronic waste. Hong Kong has replaced China to become ground zero for toxic electronic materials.

| A waste-sorting and recycling pilot project in Vietnam's Hanoi city is no longer active since it started 10 years ago. The project on sorting domestic waste at source was funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency.

| Fead welcomes the draft report on the Waste Framework Directive (WFD), prepared by MEP Simona Bonafè, but still sees the need for some further improvement.

| The Oman Environmental Services Holding Company S.A.O.C (Be’ah) is undertaking an aggressive waste management plan in the country. Officials from Be'ah said that Oman's waste management investments could total about OMR 423.47 million.

| Germany-based European Bioplastics e.V., an association representing the bioplastics industry in Europe, has supported a new report by the European Parliament on revised waste legislation that has highlighted the role of bioplastics to help transition to a circular economy.

| European federations Euric and Fead are calling on the EU commission to focus more on the demand side in their circular economy package.

| Many European countries are realising the economic benefits of making more efficient use of material resources like metals, fossil fuels and minerals. But more action is needed to underpin this trend in resource efficiency with stronger policies on energy, material resources, waste management and on circular economy. These are the findings from a new European Environment Agency (EEA) assessment published today.

| A report by US-based Stratistics Market Research Consulting has said that the global e-waste management market is expected to reach $9.5 billion by 2022, grow at a CAGR of 21.4%. The market was valued at $2.4 billion in 2015.

| The BIR world recycling organisation and the European Recycling Industries’ Confederation have both campaigned for the development of more modern, paperless control procedures for transboundary waste movements.

| As discussions on the European circular economy package pick up speed, European Recycling Platform (ERP), a company of the Landbell Group, calls upon the European Parliament and the Member States to concentrate on enforcing EU waste Law in line with EU competition Law.

| The Municipal Corporation of India's Chandigarh has decided to close a garbage processing plant in the city as it calls for a new process for converting the entire waste of the city into energy.

| According to a recent ASSOCHAM-cKinetics study, India's electronic waste (e-waste) generated per year is expected to grow at a CAGR of 30%, rising from 1.8 million metric tonnes at present to 5.2 million by 2020.

| The recent surge in ferrous scrap prices “did not last long enough to adequately repair the collection system”, the latest meeting of the BIR Ferrous Division was told by its President, William Schmiedel of Sims Metal Management in the USA. As a result, he added, there was little evidence of supply overhang in the market.