Transport for London is trying to achieve a sharp increase in the amount of recycled material generated by the Tube network.

London Underground has increased the number of bins at its stations by 25 per cent, taking the total number on the network up to 800.

It is part of a campaign launched in partnership with Mayor of London Boris Johnson, the Metro newspaper and Keep Britain Tidy.
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Milling firms are set to face a shortage of oilseed rape as drought is officially declared in areas of eastern Britain.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced that Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire are officially drought areas.

In addition, parts of the South-East and South-West, as well as regions of Wales, are experiencing near-drought conditions.
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Biomass manufacturers will be pleased to hear that sustainable wood pellets could soon become the fuel of choice for Britain's major power stations.

Drax in North Yorkshire is the biggest such facility in the country, supplying seven per cent of all the UK's power, but this is now switching from coal to biomass.

Speaking to Greenwise, Mark Candlish, director of the Renewable Energy Association and chair of its heating and cooling group, says that Drax's conversion could push many other facilities to switch to biomass.
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Waste management firms need to work with the government to achieve ambitious European Union (EU) targets concerning electrical waste.

A new EU directive stipulates that member states must recycle 85 per cent of the materials present in waste electronics and electrical equipment (WEEE) by 2016.

Speaking to Waste Management World, the British Metals Recycling Association (BMRA) says that thousands of green jobs can be generated by investing in this area of the economy.
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Brewing and malting firms in East Anglia may have to find an alternative source for their barley from outside the region.

According to the National Farmers Union, some areas in the east of England have received only ten per cent of their usual rainfall since March.

The organisation is expected that an official drought will be declared in East Anglia this week, with resulting crop losses expected to be anywhere between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of the harvest.
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Mayor of London Boris Johnson claims the capital can save £320 million in the next four years through adopting better waste management techniques.

Data from the mayor's office shows that residents in London saved £30 million last year through use of recycling programmes and a reduction in the use of landfill space.

This money has been diverted back into community projects, and so now Mr Johnson and the borough councils of London have now launched a new project to try and increase the savings.
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Firms in the brewing industry may be facing even higher prices for their malting barley in the coming months.

Drought conditions across the UK have left many companies worried about barley stocks, with harvests having been damaged by the lack of rain.

Farmer Edd Banks told the Daily Telegraph that there is nothing that growers can do to change the situation, as normal drought treatments would make the crop unsuitable for use in the brewing industry.
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Recycling firms in Nottinghamshire look set to benefit from ambitious new plans put forward by the county council.

Council bosses say that landfill sites across the region are "rapidly running out of space", prompting a tougher approach to waste, according to the BBC.

Nottinghamshire Country Council now plans to increase its existing 50 per cent recycling rate to 75 per cent by the year 2020.
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The acquisition of land in Africa to grow non-edible crops whose seeds can be processed into biofuel has caused controversy.

An investigation by the Guardian newspaper revealed that half of the biofuel land identified between Mozambique and Senegal is linked to 11 British companies.

Some of these plan to use the land to grow Jatropha curcas, a poisonous plant with oil-rich seeds, which has been considered a good candidate for biofuels as it can be grown in arid places where food crops often cannot.
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Washing fruit and vegetables is not enough for food manufacturers to get rid of the threat of contamination with E.coli, a food hygiene expert has warned.

Research by Dr Nicola Holden of the James Hutton Institute proves that the bacteria can live inside the tissue of infected plants.

"The bacteria are able to get from animal sources on to crops through different routes, most likely in irrigation water or sometimes from slurry spraying, while some contamination can also occur during processing and packaging," she said.
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