England’s waste system faces a second problem closely connected to lock-in: capacity. The Government’s statutory 2042 target requires residual waste to fall to 287 kg per person, while the interim target is 437 kg per person by 2030⁠. Defra’s modelling indicates that collection and packaging reforms will contribute towards the reduction, but further policies will be required to close the remaining gap. That matters because incinerators are long-lived assets. If more capacity is built than...

Incinerators are built to operate for decades. That creates an awkward question: what happens when councils are trying to recycle more and produce less waste, but long-term contracts still depend on keeping incinerators supplied? This tension is known as incinerator lock-in. In simple terms, infrastructure and contracts designed around a steady supply of waste can make it harder or more expensive to reduce the amount being burned. In an August 2026 open letter, the United Kingdom Without...

Plastic pollution is usually pictured as something outside the body: bottles on beaches, fragments floating in oceans or waste accumulating in landfill. Increasingly, however, scientists are finding evidence of plastic somewhere much closer to home - inside us. As plastic breaks down, it forms microscopic particles known as microplastics and even smaller nanoplastics. Humans can encounter these particles through food, drinking water and the air we breathe. Researchers have now reported...