• Comment: Time to consider waste advice

• BP disaster puts spotlight on safety of drilling in North Sea

• Water industry calls for reform of regulation
• Agency slashes science jobs in efficiency drive
• Budget hits site clean-up and nuclear power
• Farm scheme to help biodiversity slow to take off
• Emergency Budget’s green blackout
• £275k confiscated from scrap metal dealer
• Ineos to build Teesside waste-to-biofuel plant
• Thames desalination plant a ‘sticking plaster solution’
• EPUK chief Philip Mulligan to leave
• AWS Eco Plastics fined for pollution offences
• ENDS Infographic: Mixed news on UK biodiversity

Corporate

• Planning hiccups put BT’s carbon reduction strategy in doubt

• Unilever offers few details on green pledge
• Registrations for CRC off to a slow start
• BSI publishes carbon neutrality standard
• New CRC emissions standard launched
• Markit launches tool to manage emissions
• FTSE indices assess carbon management

Energy & carbon

• Suffolk councillors pass Sizewell radioactive waste store

• Uncertainty over support for renewable heat
• Climate advisers urge CCS for gas-fired power
• Energy crops still in doldrums
• UK could be zero-carbon by 2030
• UK will meet the 2022 carbon budget
• Offset credits plummet in the recession
• Four more carbon fraud arrests
• Gwynt y Môr wind farm gets go-ahead
• Drax stalls on using co-firing capacity

Pollution & clean-up

• UK ozone levels still remain high despite VOC and NOx controls

• Permeable reactive barrier passes time test
• POPs in eels and porpoises drop
• Commission issues UK final warning over particle pollution
• Chemicals fire sparks emergency response
• Agency issues soil sulphide guidance
• Power station permit application submitted
• Weeds remediate contaminated soil

Supply chain

• Roundtable finalises certification standards for sustainable soya

• UK imports first ‘legal’ plywood from China
• Manufacturers fear REACH will interrupt supply chains
• Jewellery certification scheme expanded to platinum
• Mill starts sustainable palm oil production
• New HFC to become global standard for car air conditioning
• Germany rejects nanosilver
• Puma extends supplier reporting scheme

Waste & resources

• Battery collections get off to a solid start but must do more

• Water industry considers worth of co-digestion
• Recycling definitions are set to change
• Major anaerobic digestion plants planned for Scotland
• Exports of refuse-derived fuel increase
• DEFRA begins survey of commercial waste
• Environment Agency opposes macerators

Science

• GM cotton kills off one pest only to be faced with another

• River dioxins increased by triclosan
• Met Office: droughts more likely by 2098
• Royal Society to update climate science guide
• Industry helps with German biomonitoring plan

• Plugging industry’s carbon leakage risks

• Starting work on farming’s water foul up

National

• Review to consider waste collection frequency

• No consensus on need for landfill bans
• Scotland finalises ambitious waste plan
• Wales goes for uniform waste collections
• Industry concerned over packaging targets
• REACH inspection targets announced
• Farmers, water firms at odds over pesticide rules
• Marine management body launched
• Group to advise on NI carbon targets
• Mayor consults on scrapping extended congestion zone
• EU air quality directive transposed
• Wales goes for 7p tax on carrier bags

International

• Bonn climate talks forge new negotiating text

• Divisions delay debate on 30% CO2 target
• New international panel on biodiversity and ecosystems takes shape
• Interim framework on deforestation agreed
• Illegal timber ban agreed
• MEPs reject RoHS bans
• Commission issues biofuel guidance
• MEPs back new A+++ energy labels
• Commission cans biowaste legislation
• Cracks emerge over mercury treaty
• Agreement reached on Industrial Emissions Directive

• Tom Burke's political commentary: Don’t just kick BP but learn all the lessons from the Gulf oil-spill disaster

• MPs’ first green debate, coalition’s first green bill leave all to play for
• Special environment advisers revealed
• Secret ballot for environment select committee chairs

• Richard Macrory's legal commentary: Putting the brakes on environmental impact assessment

• Faulty pumps cost United Utilities £38K
• TV-chef’s pub fined £42K for water pollution
• Illegal waste costs £133,900
• Northern Ireland Water fined £15,000
• Southern Water fined £7,500 for offences
• Confiscation orders for Northern Ireland
• Scottish Water fined £12,000 for pollution
• Eight convicted for 1984 Bhopal disaster
• Abattoir fined for effluent failures