Scottish Government to develop materials brokerage service for councils

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A materials brokerage service is to be created in Scotland, Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead has announced.

It will be designed as a one stop shop to grow Scotland’s reprocessing sector and will help the public sector get a better deal for the recycled materials collected from communities.

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Richard Lochhead (pictured) said: “Our materials brokerage service – the first of its kind in the UK – will see supply and demand for high value recycling matched up, providing certainty of supply for investors and certainty of demand for local authorities.

“Scotland’s public sector handles almost 3 million tonnes of waste materials per year. We need to ensure these materials get to the right place and the brokerage service will enable the resources collected by councils to be channelled into higher value use, while providing a good deal for the public sector and improving our recycling rates.”

He also announced the creation of a £1.3 million Scottish Institute of Remanufacture that will be hosted by the University of Strathclyde.

It will be a pan-Scotland hub which will focus on realising the vast value in the materials and components within recyclable products such as disused TVs, mobile phones and computers.

Richard Lochhead added: “It is astounding that an estimated £50 million worth of gold will potentially be wasted in Scotland in the next five years through disposal of electronics like computers and phones. By bringing a more circular approach to the way we manage our resources, we can change that. And by channelling expertise into better remanufacturing, we can ensure that valuable components can be recovered and reused.”