The UK handles over 70 million tones of material annually through its resources and waste industry—a sector employing some 145,000 people.
As the government advances overlapping reviews on net zero, skills, industrial strategy, and resources, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) has published its report “Let’s Not Waste the Next Four Years”, urging urgent, coordinated steps to avoid losing momentum.
CIWM frames the waste sector not merely as a service arm but as a foundation of economic growth, supply chain security, and climate achievement. Yet current data show serious gaps: the UK’s recycling rate for “waste from households” stood at about 44.6% in 2023, a modest uptick from 44.1% in 2022, while waste outputs remain large and widely variable across regions. Enforcement of existing legislation is inconsistent, skills shortages are growing, and reforms launched in earlier strategies are lagging.
Existing policy activity is substantial: a new Circular Economy Strategy for England, reforms to landfill tax, expanding the UK Emissions Trading Scheme’s reach to include more residual waste, and regulatory reviews in packaging and minerals. But CIWM’s analysis warns that many of these initiatives are siloed. Overlaps and contradictions among task forces and advisory bodies risk dulled impact; local authorities struggle with regulatory uncertainty, and private sector actors point to underinvestment in critical infrastructure—especially material sorting, digital tracking of waste streams, and robust recycling technology.
Aluminium recycling garners particular attention. CIWM notes that aluminium, which can be indefinitely recycled at much lower energy costs compared to primary production, remains under-utilized due to weak producer responsibility frameworks, inadequate digital tracking, and insufficient investment in sorting capacity. Improving collection rates and regulatory tightening are seen as prerequisites to unlocking the energy and emissions savings aluminium reuse promises.
CIWM’s ten priorities include embedding circular economy principles across all government policy, boosting green skills, deploying digital waste tracking, strengthening producer responsibility for packaging and residual waste, and tightening enforcement to counteract waste crime. These are tied to national targets: halving avoidable waste by 2025, eliminating landfill by 2050, and pushing household recycling rates above 70%. However, if 2023’s rates in the low-to-mid-40s are anything to go by, those targets demand rapid acceleration.
Economic pressures and geopolitical tensions—ranging from resource dependencies to global supply chain disruptions—add urgency. The report argues that resilience in waste and resource management is increasingly intertwined with national security and industrial strategy. Investing in skills and consistent regulation are not just environmental imperatives, but necessary to maximize economic opportunity, reduce import dependence, and protect the UK’s industrial base.
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