According to a coalition of business groups and environmentalists, at least 650 million worth of valuable materials are being thrown into landfill or burned in the UK each year. The group, which includes the manufacturers organisation EEF and Friends of the Earth, have highlighted that products ranging from steel, wheat and rubber to rare earth metals necessary for making goods such as light bulbs, will become increasingly costly, threatening UK productivity.
Although the government has made various commitments to strengthen recycling and reuse through its resource security action plan published earlier this year, some argue that these reforms do not go far enough. Recolight supports the groups call for the creation of a new “office of resource management” to co-ordinate Whitehall action on tackling resource recovery.
Recolight also supports the proposal of a task-force to review targets and recommend policies to boost recycling and to ban recyclable materials from landfill and energy from waste plants. Whilst there would inevitably be very significant challenges associated with such a ban, the vital need to preserve access to valuable resources means the issue must be seriously considered.
This call to action follows a recent EEF survey which found that 80 per cent of senior manufacturing executives considered limited access to raw materials as a business risk and a threat to growth.
Resources
As pressure mounts on the government to ensure that resources are used more efficiently, we believe it is also important to raise awareness of what needs to be recycled and how easily this can be done.
Lighting is a particularly pertinent issue in the debate, as all Gas Discharge Lamps need to be recycled because large quantities can be harmful to the environment if sent to landfill.
Beyond that, many forms of lighting also contain rare earths, and with the availability of such raw materials increasingly under pressure, it has never been more important to raise awareness of the need to recycle all forms of Gas Discharge Lamps.
WEEE
The lighting industry has a strong recycling record to date; lighting only accounts for 2% of the business tonnage of electrical and electronic equipment put on the UK market, but 22% of all business WEEE collected.
With the sharp rise in the sales of consumer CFLs, consumer recycling is also gaining momentum, and some retailers and local authorities are taking the lead. We’ve partnered with Sainsburys, Robert Dyas and Homebase, as well as a number of local authorities, to enable easier access for the general public to recycle CFLs.
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