Material Focus

Help us improve vape recycling across the UK! ♻️ Have you recently tried recycling your vape at a local retailer? Your voice matters! 💬 All retailers that sell vapes are legally required to offer vape takeback. Share your feedback via this 1-minute form (linked in the comments below) and help encourage retailers to provide more recycling points and save thousands of vapes from going to waste.

It’s easy to think something so small won’t matter. But if we throw vapes or other battery-powered electricals in with our general rubbish and recycling, they can get crushed and spark dangerous fires in bin lorries and recycling centres. 🚛🔥 As a trusted voice in the community, local authorities can help raise awareness of how to prevent battery fires while informing residents of their local recycling points for vapes and other electricals with hidden batteries. Use our updated Vapes Communications Toolkit to educate your residents on the dangers of throwing vapes and batteries in with our general rubbish and recycling, and how to safely recycle old electricals while saving valuable materials from going to waste. If you haven’t already, create an account to download the toolkit for free – it takes less than 2 minutes! https://bit.ly/4fjS7iI #RecycleYourElectricals #localauthority #RecycleYourVapes #vapes #circulareconomy

UK vapers want to do the right thing, but too many vapes are still being binned because they don’t know they can be recycled. Every second, 13 vapes are binned in the UK, losing thousands of valuable materials to landfill that could’ve been recycled. And if vapes end up in the bin, it’s not only wasteful – the batteries inside them can get crushed or damaged and spark dangerous fires in bin lorries and recycling centres. Vape retailers have a legal obligation to provide takeback and recycling. While more people are starting to recycle their vapes in-store (20% compared to last year’s 8%), more retailers need to provide recycling facilities for vapes in their stores ➡️ Our new Vapes Communications Toolkit for retailers includes in-store posters, bin stickers and social media templates, to help you promote your takeback and support your customers in recycling their vapes. If you haven’t already, create an account to download the toolkit for free – it takes less than 2 minutes! https://bit.ly/3P0aQF2 You can also download our vapes industry briefing paper to understand how you can comply with their legal environmental obligations – linked in the comments below. Are you a vaper that’s tried to recycle their vape at a local retailer? We want to hear from you! 💬 Share your experience with us via this 1-minute survey , and help improve vape recycling across the UK: https://bit.ly/4izuSnu

With over 8 million vapes now binned every week, causing hundreds of battery fires across the UK, vapes are a strong contender for being one of the most environmentally wasteful and dangerous consumer products ever made. According to our latest research launched today, 8.2 million single-use, pod and big puff vapes are now thrown away every week or recycled incorrectly, compared to the 5 million single-use vapes binned last year. Read the full research linked in the comments below, and catch the full clip of Scott Butler on BBC Breakfast on iPlayer. While a ban on single-use vapes is due in just six months (June 2025), the issue of ‘disposable’ vapes is not going away. Vape production continues to morph, with new products such as “big puff” designed to avoid the new regulations. With 3 million of ‘big puff’ vapes bought every week, providing vapers up to 6,000 puffs per vape, their popularity has soared in just six months. With this continued rise in vapes being thrown away, their environmental impact also continues to increase. If vapes – or any electrical containing a hidden battery – are thrown in the bin, they can get crushed or damaged and spark dangerous fires in bin lorries and recycling centres. Vapes also contain valuable, critical materials like lithium, which are lost forever when binned. More and more people are recycling vapes, with 20% of people recycling at their local vape retailers compared to 8% last year. However, more easily accessible recycling options need to be in place if we are to stop the vape-ocalypse. So what changes do we need to see? ➡️ Vape retailers and producers stepping up with an immediate, significant and widely accessible take-back and recycling solution, alongside a nationwide communications campaign to raise public awareness ➡️ Better information on vape packaging and in stores about how to recycle them ➡️ More recycling points in convenient locations like shops, parks, colleges and universities ➡️ Encouraging vapers to shop at stores that only offer recycling facilities ➡️ Making in-store recycling a key part of selling vapes under the new rules For those that vape – remember to never throw them in the bin, or any electrical item. Any store that sells vapes has a legal obligation to take them back for recycling. And if that retailer refuses, go to your next retailer and share your experiences with us via this form, to help improve vape recycling across the UK: https://bit.ly/3VCAMKQ For vape producers, retailers and local authorities – download our vapes industry briefing paper to understand how you can comply with their legal environmental obligations and how local authorities can access support for vapes that they collect: https://bit.ly/3Dfyzyv

London Borough of Hillingdon shows that introducing simple electrical recycling solutions into the community can have a big impact! ♻️💪 Thanks to our Electricals Recycling Fund, Hillingdon Council has transformed how residents tackle their broken and unwanted small electricals. They launched 15 library drop-off points, making it easy and accessible for residents to recycle their unwanted electricals. So far they’ve recycled 11.88 tonnes of electricals, ensuring the valuable materials inside them can be recycled into something new. But that’s not all! Hillingdon also teamed up with Friends of the Earth and hosted repair events that saved over 50 broken electricals from going to waste. This project is one of over 40 exciting projects funded by Material Focus, making it easier for 10 million people across the UK to recycle their old electricals. While the funding period has ended for this project, these collection points in local libraries will remain in service, and Hillingdon will continue promoting them through social media and educational events. Are you looking for funding for a project to make it easier for people to repair, reuse or recycle their unwanted small electricals? Our Electricals Recycling Fund is now open for new applications: https://ow.ly/ytJS50RGIZA. #RecycleYourElectricals #SustainableLiving #Sustainability #EcoWarrior #Ewaste

🔥 Battery fires in the waste stream are a growing problem for local authorities across the UK, and more needs to be done to keep communities safe. When electricals containing hidden batteries are binned they can get crushed or damaged and spark dangerous fires in bin lorries and recycling centres. Last year there were over 1,200 fires across the UK, and all of these were caused by binned electricals, such as vapes, electric toothbrushes, power banks and headphones. We can all help prevent battery fires in our local communities – 🔋 As a trusted voice, local authorities can raise awareness of how to prevent battery fires in the local community while informing people of their local recycling points.  🔋 Retailers can also make a difference by improving in-store takeback and communications to customers, and support their employees with clear guidance on battery safety. Next week we are updating our Vapes and our Battery Communications Toolkit with brand new assets, infographics and template social media posts, informed by our latest research on the scale of binned vapes and its impact. These toolkits will help local authorities and retailers educate their residents, customers and employees on the dangers of throwing vapes and batteries in our general rubbish and recycling, inform them how to safely recycle old electricals and save valuable materials from landfill. Sign up to our newsletter to be the first to hear about the release of our new vape research and toolkit updates 👉https://lnkd.in/d9NVPQm9 

📣 Online marketplaces and vape producers will soon have to pay their fair share towards the cost of recycling waste electricals 📣  The government’s announcement seeks to address unfairness in supply chains and create a level playing field between producers who sell electricals. Ensuring large online retailers pay their share is fairer for UK businesses already paying recycling costs. These new regulations will mean that online marketplaces, many of which are selling FastTech and other cheap small electricals, must take on their producer responsibilities and contribute their share of the costs towards recycling them. Our research found that over 100,000 tonnes of household electricals are binned annually, and over 800 million items are held onto in UK homes. FastTech items such as vapes have swamped the UK market, with half a billion electrical items bought in the past year alone. These small and cheap items are often seen as ‘disposable’, but contain valuable materials such as copper, gold and lithium that could instead power our green future. But right now, 90% of FastTech items that are bought are lost to landfill. Circular Economy Minister Mary Creagh CBE MP also announced that a new category of electrical equipment specifically for vapes will be introduced, meaning that those who have been profiting from the boom in their sales can be held responsible for providing public takeback, communications and most importantly pay for recycling them. See the links in the comments to read the government’s full announcement, or to read more about our research on vapes and FastTech.

Newcastle United score in The Great Cable Challenge! The results are in - thanks to the amazing efforts of Newcastle City Council, Newcastle United Football Club and local schools, an astonishing 2,705 cables were collected for Newcastle’s Great Cable Challenge – stretching nearly 5km! During the week of International E-Waste Day, the council set up a collection point opposite Newcastle United's new shop at St. James' Park, inviting match-day fans and residents travelling into the city to bag up their old cables and drop them off. Together, Newcastle residents have saved over 16 kg of copper from being lost to landfill - the same weight as 160 Greggs Sausage Rolls! A huge thank you to everyone who participated in this amazing achievement! ♻️ Did your organisation hold a Great Cable Challenge? We’d love to hear about your results. Send us a message on LinkedIn or email us at hello@materialfocus.org.uk #RecycleYourElectricals #TheGreatCableChallenge #Newcastle #NewcastleUnited #Sustainability

Remember Pretty Little Thing’s Black Friday’s 8p dress sale? Unfortunately, we seem to be repeating the same mistakes made with fast fashion – with the continued rise of ‘FastTech’. From earphones and cables to decorative lights, mini fans – and yes, single-use vapes – FastTech refers to the rapidly-consumed small electrical items that are becoming the fast fashion of the tech and electrical sector. While these products may seem "disposable" at an average price of £4, they often contain precious materials and lithium-ion batteries, meaning they should never be thrown away. With Black Friday ‘markdowns’, FastTech becomes all the more appealing to consumers – but we’re not getting as good a deal as we think: ➡️ Over 500 million FastTech items are purchased annually in the UK - 16 every second! ➡️ Spending on these items is approaching £3 billion per year. ➡️ 471 million items are discarded every year—90% of what’s bought quickly ends up in the bin. ➡️ FastTech is part of a larger issue: the UK generates over 100,000 tonnes of e-waste annually, with 800 million unused electrical items sitting idle in our homes. Read our full research, linked in the comments. And it’s just not the tech we’re buying that is contributing to consumerism. As highlighted in Netflix's recent documentary ‘Buy Now! The Shopping Conspirarcy’, technology is also being used to encourage consumers to buy more and more, using algorithms to create personalised recommendations, one-click purchase features and strategies like limited-time offers or countdowns that create urgency. These tools reduce decision-making friction, making online shopping more addictive. So what’s the solution? 💡 📉 The first step is reducing demand - only buy it unless you truly need it, not because it’s trending. 🌐 Producers must also comply with their environmental responsibilities. Many FastTech items are sold via dropshipping marketplaces like SHEIN, Temu, and AliExpress. This raises critical questions – are these items complying with UK and EU regulations on product safety, hazardous substances, and producer/retailer responsibility for e-waste? ♻️ Choose repairing, donating, selling and recycling electricals over buying new. And the good news is, we’re seeing more people than ever doing the right thing! ➡️In 2023, 14 million more small electricals were recycled compared to 2022. ➡️Over 1 million people used our Recycling Locator in 2023 ➡️ Our Electricals Recycling Funded projects have made reusing and recycling easier for over 10 million people across the UK  🔗 Want to tackle FastTech together? Search here to find out how you can repair, recycle, or donate your unwanted electricals: https://bit.ly/4im9zpw

A couple of weeks ago we stopped by Virgin Media O2’s head office to support their latest initiative in partnership with Hubbub, the ‘Tech Drive’. Multiple organisations gathered at their offices, to test how best to encourage staff to delve into their tech tangles and repair, rehome, resell and recycle their old electricals. As part of the drive we introduced two of our iconic bright pink recycling bins in their Reading office - plus another at their office in Paddington! These bins will be a permanent addition, helping make it easier for employees to recycle their old and unused tech responsibly. At Material Focus, we’re committed to making recycling small electricals simple and accessible for everyone. By bringing these bins into workplaces, we’re helping organisations like VM02 lead the way in tackling e-waste. #RecycleYourElectricals