UK 2035 Critical Raw Materials Strategy: Challenges and Solutions

Critical raw materials (CRMs) are exactly that – critical to sustain our way of life through their applications in technology, science and medicine. However, thanks to years of a ‘take, make, waste’ style consumption, humanity has reached a state where we are consuming and disposing of these materials at a far greater rate than the earth can regenerate them.

Many products contain CRMs and a worrying amount of them end up in landfill; for example, an estimated 844 million vapes are discarded every year. These products, designed with a single use in mind, contain lithium (a critical raw material) in their batteries. Vapes like these need to be taken apart and their components disposed of separately but often end up thrown away with household waste; the National Fire Chiefs Council recently reported lithium battery fires have cost the UK economy in excess of £158 million in damages. This hazard, combined with their risk to human and environmental health, has led to a number of organisations, including Techbuyer, calling for them to be banned.

At the same time as this, there is a growing need for materials like lithium to aid us in our transition to green technologies as we seek to decarbonise our economy. Thanks to its use in technology, like electric car engines, demand for lithium is predicted to skyrocket by 1,100% in the next 10 years.

Recognising this challenge and looking to the future, the UK government recently published “Vision 2035: Critical Minerals Strategy” – a 10 year strategic plan to shape the procurement and reuse of critical materials (such as lithium) in the UK. The main objectives of this strategy are simple: to increase domestic production of CRMs and build a resilient supply network of them throughout the UK.

So, How do They Plan to do it?

With sovereignty of these minerals becoming increasingly important, there is predictably a portion of this strategy focused on the further acquisition of CRMs. This acquisition is planned through extraction, processing and refining, with a quota set for 10% of UK annual demand to be met through domestic production by 2035.

Despite China currently holding a monopoly on the majority of global CRMs this is not wholly implausible: the UK is home to a surprisingly diverse collection of minerals including tellurium, cobalt, and of course lithium – with the largest lithium deposit in Europe residing in Cornwall. In fact, as of 2024 the UK contains 17 of the 18 minerals identified in the recent strategic plan.

However, as previously stated: simply increasing extraction and refinery is not a sustainable solution. So, more pleasing to circular economists are the Government’s plans to increase the reclamation of CRMs through recycling and resource recovery. Vision 2035 sets out an optimistic target to meet 20% of CRM demand with materials recovered this way by 2035. Unfortunately, as it stands the UK falls significantly short of this target: using lithium as an example again, only about 5% of i-ion batteries are recycled. Other sources estimate the recycle rates of CRMs in the UK to be as little as less than one percent.

The incentive to move from virgin mining to recycling and reclamation is not just environmental too – a 2022 research paper into the relative cost of copper and aluminium accrual showed that both metals were significantly cheaper (around 55% for copper and 33% for aluminium) to recycle than to mine.

The Recovery Methods at Techbuyer’s Disposal

By continuing to operate as a zero to landfill organisation, Techbuyer ensure that none of the equipment that we process ends up contributing to the global e-waste problem currently depleting the levels of CRMs available to us.

Techbuyer is also continually exploring new methods of resource recovery to maximise the number and amount of rare metals that can be recovered from IT equipment. This includes: