The CIWM Presidential Report 2025, “Lost Opportunities? Winning Back Materials to Drive the UK’s Circular Economy,” highlights the significant loss of valuable resources in the UK. The report, written by Dr. Ryan Woodard, identifies six critical minerals that are often overlooked and lost to the economy: Used Cooking Oil, Seafood Shells, Wool, Lithium, Gallium, and Tin. These materials are discarded in residual waste, dumped, or burnt, resulting in lost opportunities for recovery and reuse. The report emphasizes the need to capture and derive value from these resources to reduce consumption of virgin materials, address resource security, and increase UK productivity. Emerging opportunities for these materials include biopolymers, road construction, natural polymers, insulation, and energy storage. The report calls for policy interventions, such as Extended Producer Responsibility and mandatory recycled content targets, to stimulate investment and scale up recovery solutions. By recovering these lost materials, the UK can drive its circular economy and reduce waste.
Reclaiming Waste: Harnessing Recycled Materials to Fuel the UK’s Transition to a Circular Economy
