A UK not-for-profit, formerly the WEEE Fund, that runs the Recycle Your Electricals campaign and funds projects to reuse and recycle old electrical items.
Material Focus is a UK not-for-profit organisation that works to make it easier to reuse and recycle electricals, from phones and cables to toasters and vapes. It was formerly known as the WEEE Fund. WEEE stands for waste electrical and electronic equipment. Its best-known project is the Recycle Your Electricals campaign, which launched on 5 May 2020 and asks people to fix, donate, sell or recycle old electricals instead of leaving them in drawers or throwing them in the bin. Its About Us page describes its work as "making electricals circular".
The organisation says its mission is to ensure "materials from old electricals are never wasted". It describes three strands of work: inspiration, which shows people the hidden value in old electricals and gives practical advice; insight, which funds research into barriers to reuse and recycling; and investment, which works with partners to add more collection points of more types. It runs a Circular Electricals Fund and an Electricals Recycling Fund for pilot projects, and publishes toolkits, research and briefings for councils, retailers and businesses. Its website says that since 2020, 9.2 million more adults have been actively reusing and recycling electricals.
Material Focus works across the UK, in partnership with local councils and retailers. Councils such as Leeds, Wolverhampton, West Northamptonshire and North Tyneside have promoted its campaign on their own websites, and Gravesham Borough Council reported its recycle bank collected 27,000 small electricals. The pages we read give no office address, so we do not know where its staff are based. At the time of the 2020 launch Scott Butler was its executive director, but we have not confirmed that he still is.
The organisation is governed by a board made up of four producer trade associations, AMDEA, BEAMA, the Lighting Industry Association and techUK. An independent advisory panel helps guide major decisions, with members from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Reuse Network, the local authority recycling advisory body LARAC and other groups. It is supported by electrical producers under UK rules that require them to pay for the collection and recycling of electrical waste. These are the organisation's own descriptions of how it works.
As a small organisation with a national campaign, its staff do roles such as campaign and communications work, research and insight, grant-making and partnerships, data analysis, and working with councils and retailers. If you are interested in how behaviour change campaigns work, why so many small electricals end up in landfill, or how policy shapes recycling, Material Focus publishes research and funded pilots that are open to read on its website. The page says it is recruiting, so its website is the place to look.
Website: materialfocus.org.uk
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