Cleaning up

We know it’s unseemly to blow our own trumpets, but the big news for us this week is the launch of the new look for The Engineer. The new issue has just arrived in our office and should reach readers today. We hope you enjoy it.

The environment is at the top of the agenda this week. Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, is to announce plans to halve the amount of unrecycled waste in the UK by 2020, which will involve the building of new waste-to-energy plants. He’s expected to call this a plan to make the UK a ‘zero-waste nation’, although ‘not-quite-as-much-waste nation’ might be more accurate.

The UK and Norway are to host a Carbon Squestration Leadership Forum in London this week, bringing together energy and environment ministers from 23 nations to discuss international collaboration on carbon capture and storage technologies. One of many pre-Copenhagen events, the forum will also host talks among the G8 nations on its plans to launch 20 demonstration projects over the course of next year.

The role of industry in research will come under the spotlight this week, with the launch of a new report from pressure group Scientists for Global Responsibility. The group alleges that scientific research is being compromised by commercial interests in the pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, defence, biotech and tobacco sectors, damaging its reliability and wider value to society.

Stuart Nathan
Special Reports Editor