We're calling for the development and delivery of a clear overarching strategy – coordinated by central government – to enable a circular economy of materials in the UK.
Unsustainable resource use is driving the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and waste and pollution.
Currently, the UK has a largely linear economy where resources are extracted with significant environmental and health impacts used in products and services, before being thrown away as waste.
To ensure continued access to resources as we deliver net zero, we need to move to a circular economy model.
Our materials strategy action plan
The chemical sciences will play a pivotal role in the transition to a circular economy by driving better material choice and substitution decisions, making process and products more resource-efficient and sustainable, and developing the technologies for recovery of materials at the end-of-life.
To achieve the step-change needed to deliver a circular economy that benefits all, our governments must:
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Improve data collection, including the mapping and tracking of critical mineral and other material streams within renewable energy, electrical and electronic equipment, and other key technologies and sectors.
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Support world-class research into sustainable materials, including those limiting emissions along entire material and product lifecycles.
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Invest in and incentivise resource-efficient design, production and processes, alongside assessments of criticality and substitutability of materials, taking into account the needs of different sectors.
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Invest in infrastructure to support the re-use, repair and re-manufacturing of products according to the waste hierarchy.
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Invest in recycling infrastructure and technologies to enable the increased recovery of critical minerals and other materials to be used as secondary resources and prevent their leakage from the economy.
#Tackling e-waste
E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the world, and the UK is the second largest contributor globally. Tackling e-waste is vital to help recover valuable and critical materials contained within it and to limit the environmental and human health impacts of improperly processed or managed e-waste.
Our policy teams have been helping to inform the Environmental Audit Committee’s evidence-gathering on e-waste. Speaking in parliament, our environment policy adviser, Izzi Monk, said:
Government should be developing and delivering a clear, coherent strategy that enables a circular economy of materials in the UK. Our unsustainable resource usage globally is driving the triple planetary crisis of climate change, waste and pollution, and biodiversity loss.
So not only does the extraction, and processing and usage of these materials, and then the waste at the end of life, have environmental and human health impacts, but there are also the critical minerals that are contained within many of these products as well.
Read more from Izzi here
Download our consultation on reforming the producer responsibility system for waste electrical and electronic equipment 2023