• E.U. Doesn't Play Around With Toy Laws: The strictest toy regulations went into full effect yesterday in the European Union. All member states must now comply with the EU Toys Directive, which requires toy manufacturers, importers and distributors to conduct safety assessments on toys and identify potential hazards to children before the toys can be put on the market, New Europe reports. Toy makers must also put their name, address and number on each toy to make it easier for consumers to respond to recalls, and the number of heavy metals banned has increased from 8 to 19.

• Best Buy Wants Your E-waste: Best Buy released its latest sustainability report this week, announcing plans to reduce its carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and recycle 1 billion pounds of consumer products. Last year it collected 82 million pounds of electronics and 73 million pounds of appliances to be recycled

• Dow Bets on Sugarcane Bioplastic: Dow Chemical Company formed a joint venture with Japanese company Mitsui & Co in Brazil to create what it says will be the largest biopolymer facility in the world, BusinessGreen reports. The two will build a production facility at Dow's current operations site in Brazil to produce biopolymers from sugarcane.

• Who's Breaking the Cleantech Glass Ceiling?: Noting that the cleantech industry is heavily male-led, Grist's Amanda Little looks at the how women are gradually moving into the sector in various roles. "Some are running their own start-ups. Some are climbing the ranks in big companies. Some are investing tens of millions in start-ups via venture-capital firms. They are still a small minority, to be sure, but there's good reason to believe that women will play ever greater and more influential roles in the fast-evolving cleantech sector than they ever have in fossil fuels," she writes. 

• Waste Takes A Break: Waste is out at Nestle U.K.'s York candy plant, as it has met the company's goal of sending zero trash to landfill four years ahead of schedule. The plant, which produces Kit Kat and Aero bars, expects to save almost $200,000 a year, and now sells all of the cardboard, plastic, metal, pallet and metalized film waste it produces, Edie.com reports.

• Big Charges for Nano Opponents: An alleged plan to blow up or cause severe damage to an IBM nanotechnology research center under construction in Zurich has three so-called "eco-terrorists" on trial in Switzerland, Scotsman.com reports. Supporters of the suspects outside of the court have also been demonstrating against nanotechnology, biotechnology and nuclear power.

_{Toy image CC-licensed by Plinkk/Flickr}