A £1 billion circular electricals opportunity is being missed – Inside track

This post is by Scott Butler, executive director of Material Focus.

After the Black Friday and Christmas electricals buying frenzy, something else quietly happens. Drawers and cupboards are opened, some get cleared out and some are added to. The new year always sees a mini surge in this activity, with a marked 30 per cent increase in electricals being recycled in January compared to December. Because the moment feels right. We reset and take stock, trying to live up to our values better in the year ahead.

Last Christmas, in the UK, 183 million pieces of ‘FastTech’ worth £1.7 billion were purchased, including cheap items like Christmas lights. Nearly as many of them are then quickly thrown away. Every year, 168 million light up items and battery powered FastTech gifts end up in the bin, causing hundreds of battery fires and losing the precious materials inside them forever.

We need a more sustainable, ‘circular electricals’ approach. It isn’t about eliminating technology or giving up electricals, it’s about creating, and using them, more thoughtfully.

Instead of the old ‘take, make, waste’ model, a circular approach keeps electricals – and the materials inside them – in use for longer. Products last longer and are reused and repaired. Materials are recovered from them and fed back into new products without the need to keep mining for new materials.

This approach reduces environmental harm, strengthens supply chains, unlocks economic value and reduces the life-threatening fires caused by lithium-ion batteries ending up in the wrong waste and recycling channels.

We’re taking the value in tech for granted
Tech and electricals can be amazing. They keep our clothes clean and our food fresh, they keep us warm, entertained and connected. They provide opportunities for learning and progress. They give us identity and status, make us feel capable, safe and equipped for any eventuality. They make life easier and save lives.

But we often take them for granted, missing their true value. Every electrical item is packed with valuable, critical and finite materials. Like copper in cables and lithium in batteries. Until recently, many of these materials were disregarded. Now they are strategically important. The updated 2024 UK list of critical minerals, managed by the British Geological Survey, identifies 34, with 17 new additions since 2021. This reflects rising demand and growing supply risks. Familiar metals, like aluminium, tin and lead, are also now being viewed as vital for sustaining modern life.

In UK homes and businesses across the country there is a hidden treasure trove of these metals. It’s estimated that 880 million unused electricals are sitting in ‘drawers of doom’, and every year we bin more than 100,000 tonnes. Our research reveals these contain a massive £1 billion worth of recoverable materials.

And we’re producing more tech than ever before. New product categories like e-textiles, MedTech (medical technology) and FastTech, including hundreds of millions of vapes that didn’t exist five years ago. Many of these products are cheap, hard to repair and designed with little thought for what happens at the end of their life.

How to keep electricals – and their materials – in use for longer
We think there are some key principles for turning this situation around.

1. Design for life. Electricals need to be durable, repairable and upgradeable, with accessible spare parts and safer battery design. Designing with end of life in mind makes everything else easier.

2. Reuse and repair first. The refurbished market is growing, and demand for second hand tech is rising, particularly to help digital inclusion. Yet repair and donation remain hard, despite three quarters of people saying they would donate working electricals if it were easier.

3. Make the right choice easy. It’s still not easy for everyone to reuse and recycle, in particular those without a car, and people in remote and rural areas or with specific accessibility needs. It needs to be easy for everyone if we want everyone to act.

4. Support urban mining and smarter recycling. Improved technologies can recover higher quantities of copper, lithium, gold and rare earths, turning waste into a reliable domestic resource.

5. Don’t view all electricals as the same. A fridge, a vape and a medical device need very different solutions.

Why this moment matters
Momentum is building. Over the past five years, 9.2 million more people in the UK have started recycling their electricals. In the last two years alone, 30 million more electricals were recycled than in the previous two. People want to do the right thing, as long as it’s simple, and they have confidence in what they’re being asked to do. Governments, local authorities, producers, retailers, charities and communities all have a role to play. Acting together will have far greater impact than any single intervention.

Taking a circular electricals approach doesn’t just reduce waste. It protects the environment, prevents dangerous fires, secures critical raw materials, supports economic growth, and creates new jobs. It’s a true win-win-win for people, the planet and the economy.

The new Circular Economy Growth Plan is expected imminently. It will be interesting to see how government policy will lay the foundations for a circular electricals future.

Anything with a plug, battery or cable can be reused or recycled, including the plugs, batteries, and cables themselves. Search ‘recycle your electricals’ and use the Recycle Your Electricals Recycling Locator to find one of 30,000 repair, donation and recycling points across the UK.

To learn more, visit www.materialfocus.org.uk and read their report Saving valuable materials.