Environment Secretary Steve Reed - Circular Economy speech
Source: gov.uk (2025-03-27)

Speech by Environment Secretary Steve Reed at the Dock Shed in London, setting out his vision for a circular economy

Thanks to British Land and Mace for hosting us at the Dock Shed today.

The views up here are absolutely spectacular.

I don’t think any of us can ever tire of looking at that iconic London skyline. No matter how many times you’ve seen it before.

Or seeing the city shift and grow as buildings go up and down, as spaces are developed. As communities are created.

When I was Lambeth Council Leader, I was co-chair of the Vauxhall Nine Elms Redevelopment – that’s the biggest regeneration project in Europe.

But what people don’t always see is the waste that kind of development can produce.

62% of all waste generated in the United Kingdom comes from construction.

That’s resources lost from our economy.

Lost economic value.

As we meet our commitment as a Government to build 1.5 million homes, the infrastructure for clean green energy and a reliable and clean water supply, the datacentres to make the UK an AI superpower, we can and we must get better use out of our materials and eradicate waste.

Mace and British Land – and many others in the room – are already rising to the challenge.

In this building alone, thousands of tonnes of carbon were saved by smarter material choices, meaning every structure has a smaller carbon footprint.

The stone floor beneath your feet is completely recycled.

And in new buildings across the development, British Land and Mace are using material passports to digitally track all components so they can be adapted and reused in the future.

Later this morning I’m looking forward to visiting the Paper Garden, just a few minutes from here, transformed from an old printworks into an education centre and a garden, where 60% of materials have been retained or reclaimed, including railway sleepers and the logs of fallen trees from Epping Forest.

The principles of a Circular Economy are embedded in these designs.

That’s what I want to talk about today.

Not just in construction but across all sectors.

We have an opportunity to end the throwaway society and move to a futureproofed economy.

Where things are built to last.

Where products are designed to be reused and repaired. And materials given new life again and again.

This isn’t about merely modifying the way we currently manage waste.

I want to work with all of you to fundamentally transform our economy so we get more value from it.

When I was in opposition, this is what business leaders told me they wanted a Labour Government to do.

So when I became Secretary of State for Defra, I made creating a Circular Economy one of my five core priorities for that department.

British businesses want to make this change.

So now it’s part of the Government’s national Plan for Change.

But it needs long-term direction on how regulation will develop.

So you can plan with certainty, so we can build the infrastructure we need, and financial institutions and businesses can invest with confidence.

Today I want to set that direction so, together, we can make the Circular Economy a reality.

Turn back the years and the things Britain made were built to last.

Washing machines would be fixed, clothes mended, broken pieces of furniture repaired.

But in recent times we’ve become trapped in a throwaway culture.

It’s easier and quicker to replace something on Amazon than get it fixed.

Our lives follow a ‘take, use and throw’ model that is economically unsustainable, creates mountains of waste that we have to bury or burn, and leaves our supply chains vulnerable and exposed.

Yet we know the British public support change.

Carrier bags sold by the main supermarkets have reduced by over 98% since 2014.

We’ve cleaned up streets, rivers and beaches by banning single-use plastic items like cutlery and polystyrene cups.

Both policies had huge public support.

But we are falling behind the rest of the world.

This Government is changing that.

Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility will begin later this year, incentivising businesses to remove unnecessary packaging and make their products more recyclable and refillable.

Simpler Recycling for the workplace starts next week.

And a standardised, national approach to household recycling – paper, card, plastic, glass, metals and food waste – will be introduced next year so everyone understands more clearly what they can recycle and how they recycle it.

This will end postcode confusion about bin collections and make sure households, workplaces and businesses never have to deal with the madness of 7 separate bin collections which the previous Conservative Government legislated to inflict on us.

And this April, we will appoint the business-led organisation that will launch the UK’s first Deposit Management Scheme for drinks containers starting in 2027.

Less than 60% of waste electricals are collected for reuse or recycling.

4 in 5 of our plastic products are still made from virgin materials.

Our household recycling rates haven’t improved in 15 years.

UK landfill sites absolutely astonishingly cover an area almost as big as Greater London.

We burn 12 million tonnes of waste collected by councils every year.

We throw away £22 billion in edible food annually. Four and a half billion in clothes. 2 and a half billion in usable furniture.

This is bad for the environment, bad for society and it’s bad for the economy.

We are literally shovelling money down the drain.

Under Michael Topham’s leadership at the Environmental Services Association, our biggest recycling companies are stepping up to the challenge.

Our reforms are giving them the confidence to invest £10 billion pounds in the UK’s recycling infrastructure over the next decade, creating over 21 thousand jobs right across the country.

I know parts of the industry have concerns around the impacts of some of these reforms.

We are listening. And we’ll keep listening to make sure the changes work for businesses.

Based on businesses’ feedback, we’ll appoint a producer-led organisation to lead our packaging reforms, building on the successful business-led board that steered them to this stage.

We’ve published estimated base fees for year one of the scheme, rather than ranges, to give businesses more certainty.

And we have stopped mandatory labelling requirements to avoid any trade friction or increased costs within the UK and with the EU.

We’ve also worked with the Food Standards Agency to confirm they will take up the role of competent authority, carrying out the checks to verify the suitability of recycling processes producing food-grade recycled plastics for trade, so we can uphold the value of high-quality UK recycled plastics on export markets.

Beyond our packaging changes, our ban on disposable plastic vapes comes into force in June.

We are changing the law so online marketplaces and vape producers pay their fair share to recycle the electricals that they put on the market – encouraging them to consider other options like reuse.

We’ve set aside £15 million to reduce food waste from farms and ensure it reaches families in need.

And we’ve set strict conditions for new energy-from-waste plants so they work better for local communities and maximise the value of resources that can’t be re-used or recycled.

I’m proud of where we’ve got to so far. But I know these reforms are still not enough.

We need a bigger shift to an economic system that encourages repair, reuse and innovation, where resources are used again and again, and waste is designed out of the system right from the start.

I worked in business for 16 years, with responsibility for driving up profit and driving down cost.

To make this bigger shift, I know we must help you unlock innovation and technologies that will open new revenue streams.

Work with local government to ensure the right infrastructure is in place.

And show the public that the circular economy is not some abstract concept, but something that will bring real benefits to them, their families, small businesses and communities right across the UK.

A Circular Economy makes sense.

In the Netherlands, financial organisations like InvestNL and innovations such as the Denim Deal for textiles are stimulating innovation in every corner of their economy.

I want the UK to match this. And then go further.

Moving from our current throwaway society is vital to grow the economy and deliver our Plan for Change, so we can give working people economic security, and give our country national security.

Towns and cities in every region will benefit from new investment that keeps materials in use for longer, whether in manufacturing and product design, processing or recycling facilities, or in the rental, repair and resale sectors.

This will provide thousands of high quality, skilled jobs right across the country, getting more people into work, wages into pockets, and driving the regional economic growth this Government was elected to deliver.

If you want to put a figure on it, external analysis suggests circular economy policies have the potential to boost the economy by £18 billion a year, every year.

A Circular Economy is also a more resilient economy.

Recent disruptions to global supply chains from the Covid 19 pandemic to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine make it clear we can no longer rely on importing 80% of our raw materials from abroad.

These include the materials and components essential to our phones, computers, electric vehicles, hospital equipment and clean energy infrastructure. And that’s to name just a few.

To ensure our national security in an increasingly unstable world, we have no choice.

We must embrace circular, local supply chains to reduce our exposure to global shocks and prevent us running out of critical resources.

As the Chancellor has said, we need to remove barriers for British businesses, investors and entrepreneurs and grow the supply-side of our economy.

It’s not just the economy though.

Extracting resources and processing them is responsible for over half of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Moving away from the linear make, use and throw model is vital to meeting our Net Zero and Environment Targets.

It will mean less rubbish ending up in landfill. Fewer plastics under our feet and choking the seas, taking hundreds of years to break down.

We can make better use of that land, whether for agriculture, housing, nature or green energy infrastructure.

It will mean burning less waste. Less litter on our streets. Less fly tipping on the side of our roads.

It will mean people can feel more pride in their communities.

British businesses are already showing us what’s possible.

From innovative tech startups turning waste into valuable materials, to social enterprises giving used goods a second life.

Like SUEZ working with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to give hundreds of tonnes of pre-loved items like furniture, bikes and toys a brand new lease of life.

Reselling them to the local community at affordable prices or donating them to local charities.

Too Good to Go, established in Copenhagen and spanning multiple global cities including here in London, which has over 100 million users and saved over 400 million meals.

Low Carbon Materials in Durham, using alternative construction materials to decarbonise roads across the country.

Or Ecobat Solutions’ in Darlaston recovering valuable materials from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries through their innovative recycling plant.

I want to support businesses like these to succeed.

By facilitating the transition you told me this sector wants to make.

That’s why I set up the Circular Economy taskforce, bringing together experts from government, industry, academia and civil society to work with businesses on what they want to see so we create the best possible conditions for investment.

I’m delighted to have so many members of the taskforce here with us in the room this morning.

Under the leadership of Andrew Morlet and Professor Paul Ekins, the taskforce will work with businesses to develop the first ever Circular Economy Strategy for England.

We will publish the Strategy in the coming Autumn.

It will include the long-term regulatory roadmaps that businesses asked for, showing the journey to circularity, sector by sector, so you have the certainty and direction to invest in the future.

We will start with five sectors that have the greatest potential to grow the economy: chemicals and plastics; construction; textiles; transport; and agrifood.

This includes exploring how we can protect our battery supply so we can electrify the UK’s vehicle fleet, working with the Chancellor to make sure levers including the Plastics Packaging Tax help support the stability and growth of our plastics reprocessing sector, or how we harness new technologies to stop burning materials like the plastic films on packs of strawberries or mushrooms, but instead give them a new life.

We’re already seeing innovation in plastic films by the company Quantafuel based in Denmark, and Viridor who are here today, alongside others, want to develop chemical recycling plants following that model here in the UK.

It includes how we build on the industry led coalition ‘Textiles 2030’ to transform our world-leading fashion and textiles industry, tackle food waste to improve food security and bring benefits for consumers, businesses and the environment, and lower construction costs and emissions as we build 1.5 million homes during the lifetime of the current Parliament.

In these roadmaps, we’ll learn from international best practice, including from the European Union.

Until now, countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany have led the way on circularity.

Our Strategy will give British businesses the support they need so we can put the UK back in the race.

It will provide the freedom for businesses to harness the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation that Britain has long been known for.

Those of you here today are the champions for this change.

You were the first off the start line. You’ve battled to do what’s right for the environment, the economy, and the future of our country.

I want to thank you for that.

Businesses will lead the transition to a Circular Economy.

It’s up to us to work together to bring the wider business community and society with us.

We need to show the country that the Circular Economy is not just a diagram on a page.

It’s cleaner streets, greener parks, and less fly-tipping in communities we’re proud to call home.

It’s new income for businesses, thousands of skilled jobs, and economic growth in every region of the country.

It’s resilience in the face of global supply chain shocks, and it’s essential for our national security.

The Circular Economy is our chance to improve lives up and down the country. To grow our economy.

And protect our beautiful environment for generations to come.

I’m genuinely excited about what we can achieve together.

My ask from you is simple.

Please tell the taskforce, and tell me, what you need from us.

Then work with us so we can make it happen.

Thank you.