The European Parliament voted on 23 April to adopt new rules on the so-called “right to repair” for consumers, which aim to make it easier and more cost-effective to repair goods. The new rules ensure that manufacturers provide timely and cost-effective repair services and inform consumers about their rights to repair. Goods repaired under the warranty will benefit from an additional one-year extension of the legal guarantee, further incentivising consumers to choose repair instead of replacement. After the legal guarantee has expired, the manufacturer is still required to repair common house ..read more

Wales plans to press on with the inclusion of glass in its own scheme. The UK government has announced a delay to the scheduled October 2025 start date of a UK-wide Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), which will now roll back to October 2027. This confirmed the expectation set by a 26 March statement from Environment Secretary Steve Barclay, that a delay was to be expected given the need to ensure alignment between the UK Parliament and the various devolved administrations. Responding to the announcement, the Recycling Association chief executive Paul Sanderson suggested this time should be used to c ..read more

Heyuan Queyashan Wind Farm in Guangdong. Wind is China’s largest source of electricity after coal and hydropower, delivering 9.4% of the total electricity supply in 2023. The seeming enormity of the green energy shift taking place in China is given shape by what’s described as the most comprehensive English-language report on China’s energy transition. It also looks at the persistence of fossil fuels in its energy mix. According to DNV’s “Energy Transition Outlook China”, the country is establishing itself as a green energy leader with an unrivalled build out of renewable energy and export of ..read more

Sorted’s founding team, from left to right: Edward Rosten, Arthur Goujon (CTO), Luis Espinosa (CEO), Kate Pleteneva & Robin Brown. London-based recycling tech business, Sorted, has raised £1.65 million in a seed funding round. The group’s technology enables human pickers to better sort and recover targeted materials. Using computer vision, spectroscopy and coloured lasers driven by AI, their solution identifies, differentiates and pinpoints valuable items on recycling lines. This unique use of AI offers a digitised solution to a very physical problem. Each year, 2.12 billion tonnes of wast ..read more

A proposal to ban the manufacture, import and use of PFAS in Europe, with a few exceptions, is currently being debated at the European Commission. Sona Dadhania of market intelligence firm IDTechEx offers a brief look into the global regulatory landscape of PFAS, including findings from the group’s new report “Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) 2024: Emerging Applications, Alternatives, Regulations”. The signing of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in 2001 marked a historic moment, as it was the first global treaty aimed at eliminating or restricting chem ..read more

Speed cameras: Lessons learned in this space are informing the roll-out of noise cameras Noise camera technology is ready to be deployed for monitoring urban traffic, according to a number of firms developing it. Envirotec looks at how different groups propose to do it. While modern cars may be all too easily modified to produce ear-splitting bangs, pops and other eruptions, a growing hazard for the modern city dweller (at least if they value being able to sleep or concentrate on a task), the technology to pinpoint such vehicles, for law enforcement purposes, is not-so-trivial. The public appe ..read more

The Scottish Parliament. Commentators expressed disappointment at the Scottish government’s 19 April decision to abandon its target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent by 2030. Màiri McAllan, the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Net Zero and Energy, delivered the statement to the Scottish Parliament, which was a response to the Climate Change Commitee’s recently published Progress Report, which had dubbed the 2030 target as “beyond what is credible”, pointing out that the country’s annual emissions reduction target has been missed in eight of the last ..read more

The Environmental Industries Commission’s Air Quality Taskforce has called for greater clarity on the future of the Air Quality Grant scheme following the news on 17 April that DEFRA will withhold local council grants for air quality improvement projects. After being notified about their successful Local Air Quality Grant scheme applications only two months ago, the decision from DEFRA means that several cash-strapped local authorities may halt their progress on improving air quality in their areas until funding is provided. EIC said its Air Quality Taskforce had written to the Government req ..read more

All Energy Exhibition 2023 SEC, Glasgow This article contains paid for content produced in collaboration with Reed Exhibitions. All-Energy 2024, the UK’s largest renewable and low energy exhibition and conference, brings together key stakeholders actively involved in engineering a net zero future. Held 15-16 May at Glasgow’s SEC the exhibition features 270 exhibitors embracing all sources of renewable energy and, increasingly, the grid and networks as grid modernisation moves ever closer. The co-located Dcarbonise is aimed at decarbonising the built environment, heat, cities/places, industry ..read more

Water-based paints may create less of a stink, but some still contain chemicals flagged as potentially hazardous, according to new research. Water-based paints have emerged as “greener” and less smelly than solvent-based options. And they are often advertised as containing little-to-no VOCs. But a new study of these paints shows many of them do contain compounds that are considered VOCs, along with other chemicals of emerging concern. The study was published in the American Chemical Society publication Environmental Science & Technology Letters in April. Paint consists of four ingredients ..read more