After years of allegations about it having mishandled waste on board the Probo Koala within the port of Amsterdam, and subsequent alleged dumping in the Ivory Coast, Trafigura agreed to settle with the Dutch Prosecution Service in November 2012.

FORBES: Riding Glencore Wave, Commodity Trader Claude Dauphin Becomes a Billionaire

The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board concurs, adding that reprocessing may reduce nuclear waste but it does not yet eliminate it.

FORBES: Nuclear Energy Radiating on Capitol Hill

Coca-Cola, meanwhile, is on board with the Olympic waste reduction efforts.

FORBES: London's Olympics Go For Environmental Gold

Three ferry companies have described their consultations with Dover Harbour Board over plans for privatisation as "a meaningless waste of time".

BBC: Dover port privatisation talks 'a waste of time'

An example of this new approach was the appointment of Ralph Whitworth, an institutional investor with a reputation for activism, to the board of Apria Healthcare last year and more recently as chairman of Waste Management, a troubled company.

ECONOMIST: Thank you and goodbye

Paul Bettison, who chairs the LGA's environment board, told the BBC food scrap collections might help reduce some of the smells caused by fortnightly waste collections.

BBC: Call to recycle food separately

President Obama's budget also replaces the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester with smarter ones, making long-term reforms, eliminating actual waste and programs that are no longer needed.

WHITEHOUSE: Our Top Stories