Tyrecycle Chief Executive Officer Jim Fairweather is urging stronger government procurement of recycled rubber products and market-based regulation in evidence to the federal parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s tyre industry. Fairweather wants policy settings that favour domestic processing of end-of-life tyres into crumb rubber and tyre-derived fuel rather than landfilling or export, stating the company’s goal is that “not a single tyre” is dumped in Australia. For road authorities and civil contractors, any mandated uptake could expand supply of rubber-modified asphalt and engineered fill using tyre-derived aggregates.

The Regulators' Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development (Rapid) has opened a consultation on expanding its remit in planning and consenting major water infrastructure in England. Proposals would extend Rapid’s current focus on strategic water resource schemes to a wider range of large-scale assets, potentially including new reservoirs, inter-regional transfer pipelines and associated treatment works. For engineers, a broader Rapid role could change programme risk profiles, front‑end design timelines and regulatory interfaces for multi‑billion‑pound water projects in AMP9 and beyond.

More than 70 critical minerals agreements have been signed since 2021, but over 60% are non‑binding frameworks without concrete investment, production, procurement or financing commitments, leaving China’s 60–90% control of rare earths refining and other midstream capacity largely unchallenged. The US has inked over 20 deals in 18 months and launched initiatives such as FORGE and the US‑EU‑Japan framework, yet only a handful are legally binding, creating a gap between diplomatic ambition and bankable project support. Africa, despite holding over 60% of global cobalt reserves, features in relatively few agreements, with contrasting cases such as a binding US‑DRC cobalt deal and Zambia’s rejection of proposed US conditions signalling producer countries’ growing leverage to demand local processing, infrastructure and policy flexibility.