Reusing and repairing household goods, from washing machines to phones, and recycling throwaway consumer items such as plastic bottles, could create hundreds of thousands of green jobs across the UK, a thinktank has found. The UK creates thousands of tonnes of unnecessary waste each year, some of which is still exported, because of a failure to value resources and invest in the infrastructure needed to re-purpose manufactured goods. The Green Alliance thinktank found that prioritising the repair and reuse of manufactured goods instead could create more than 450,000 jobs in the next 15 years, many of them in areas where traditional manufacturing has declined. At current rates, the growth in the circular economy is so sluggish that only 40,000 new jobs would be created by 2035. Zoe Avison, of Green Alliance, said: “A big programme to avoid unnecessary waste and reclaim the value of materials would not only help consumers but create jobs in communities across the country.

Source: The Guardian August 04, 2021 04:52 UTC