This briefing reviews the progress and impact of Material Focus’ campaign for fixing, donating, selling, and recycling electricals across the UK over the past five years, including trends surrounding new waste streams like “FastTech”.
Key findings:
- Public engagement with recycling has grown significantly, with 9.2 million more people reporting that they recycle electricals than in 2020. Additionally, 30 million more electrical items were collected in the UK than in the previous two years.
- Despite this progress, a massive amount of e-waste is still being lost, with over 527 million unwanted electrical items currently stashed away in UK homes and 155,000 tonnes of electricals binned annually.
- The rise of low-cost “FastTech” is driving new challenges; 471 million FastTech items were binned in the past year, and 8 million vapes were discarded weekly in 2025.
- There is a vast economic and environmental opportunity in capturing these items: recycling all electricals that are currently being held onto or incorrectly disposed of could save the UK £1 billion worth of valuable materials like copper, lithium, and gold, while preventing 7.98 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions.
