Another EU recycling law came into force in January 2007, this time allowing consumers to recycle all their old electronic and electrical equipment for free. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE ) law was adopted by the UK on 1 January, and will become fully effective in July 2007. The WEEE ensures that consumers can return all their old electrical equipment to the manufacturer ...

Sainsbury’s is the latest firm to offer biodegradable packaging to its customers: 500 of its products will now be available in compostable packaging. Around 50 per cent of household waste is from purchases made at convenience stores and supermarkets, and 25 per cent of all rubbish put out by households is retail packaging – it’s time for companies to follow Sainsbury’s lead and take act...

Councils nationwide are under pressure to meet tough recycling targets - yet just 18% of UK waste is recycled, missing the government's goal to stop a third of our rubbish going to landfill by 2015. In order to meet their quota, councils are cracking down on householders to comply with recycling measures. Penalty systems to punish those who fail to meet recycling measures have been introduce...

Tesco has announced that its recent celebrity television advertisements aimed at reducing plastic bag consumption have been an unmitigated success. The adverts first aired on the 15th August, and urge shoppers to re-use old bags or to buy a ‘bag for life’. After only three days, Tesco claimed that shoppers had used one million bags less than they would normally expect. For a while now ...

Are you the sort of person who hoards old CDs and DVDs that you might never watch again? Is your bookcase overflowing with books that you have only read once but can't bear to throw out? Have you got an item which you are sure might be a collectable but don't collect yourself? Or maybe you just have a hefty piece of furniture that you need to get rid off but don't have the facility to move it.