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 2023A strategic approach to materials in the UK wind energy industry
Wind farms require a diverse selection of materials, many of which are needed in significant quantities. These materials include: the critical minerals that make up the permanent magnets of the wind turbine generators (neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium); lightweight glass and carbon composites for the blades and generator nacelles; concrete and steel for wind turbine towers and foundations; and copper for the generator windings, inverters, control systems and cables.
The UK has put in place ambitious targets to double onshore and quadruple offshore wind capacity by 2030. Our recent analysis of the wind energy industry's material requirements – based on research conducted by the circular economy consulting firm – suggests that we will need 40 million tonnes of material to meet these targets. If wind capacity continues to grow according to the recommendation set out by the UK Climate Change Committee to deliver a decarbonised power system, a cumulative 95 million tonnes of material will be needed by 2050. It is possible that the actual material demand will be higher since there currently is no UK target defined for onshore wind capacity in 2050.
Balancing the material requirements to deliver the UK's targets for wind capacity with the needs of other industrial sectors and technologies (for example solar, electric vehicle batteries, healthcare), while managing supply chain risks which threaten economic security and growth, and minimising the environmental impacts of these materials, means the UK government must devise a coherent cross-sector strategy that prioritises material circularity and that looks across the different critical minerals and other materials integral to wind energy alongside other green technologies. Without such a strategy, the UK is highly unlikely to succeed in scaling-up wind energy as we aim for, and need to, in order to transition to net zero within the next two and a half decades.