Welcome to Material Focus

We’re on a mission to stop the valuable, critical and finite materials inside electricals from going to waste. Together with partners we are transforming the UK’s e-waste system, and empowering more people to reuse and recycle their electricals through our Recycle Your Electricals campaign. For the good of people, our economy, and our planet.

Find out more

Latest

Our in-depth research, Industry briefings, targeted investment and inspiring communications are making a difference. Millions more people have started recycling their electricals.

  • Two light-skinned hands and one dark skinned one reaching up from the bottom of the image, one holding a yellow electrical cable the other holding black USB cables and the third holding a cable with a three pin plug on against a pale blue backdrop.

    Join The Great Cable Challenge

    We’re calling on households, local authorities, retailers, and community projects to take part in The Great Cable Challenge for International E-Waste Day (14th October).

    Download our Guide and communications material to find out how you can help save valuable materials like copper from going to waste.

    Download the toolkit
  • close up of a ball of household electrical cables

    New £1m Circular Electricals Fund

    Our new £1m Circular Electricals Fund is now open until 14th August! We are looking for ideas and innovative approaches aimed at keeping electricals and their materials in use for longer – through better material use and recovery, improved design and business model innovation. 

     

    Find out more
  • a pile of battery operated minifans on a pale background

    Half a billion FastTech items binned

    Our latest research shows the demand for FastTech (small, cheap, mass-produced electricals) is booming in the UK – and it’s fuelling a waste crisis.

    Read the full media release for our research and go to Recycle Your Electricals Recycling locator to find your nearest recycling point.

    Read the media release

Our impact

  • light skin tone man posting a vape through a bright pink vape recycling bank

    Recycle Your Electricals

    Our award-winning, highly effective messenger HypnoCat has now hypnotised residents in over 300 areas across the UK.

    See the campaign
  • seven large pink electrical bring-banks on the back of a flat bed lorry

    12 million more people

    From the Orkneys to the Isles of Scilly, we’ve funded 60 projects to make it easier for over 12 million more people to recycle their electricals closer to home

  • medium-dark skin tone hands holding a phone with the screen showing recycling locations

    Over 1 million

    More and more people are using our website to confidently delete their data, sort their electricals and find their nearest drop off points to fix, donate and recycle them

  • 'Hypnocat' poster at a bus stop on a busy street.

    48% more people

    Nearly half the people who see our campaign say they plan to recycle their electricals in future. We’re making electrical recycling the easy and obvious choice for millions of people.

Work with us

We work with hundreds of local authorities, businesses and local communities. Partnership is critical to making it easier for us all to fix, donate and recycle our electricals. We’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in protecting our planet’s precious resources.

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