Over the last four years, the government has made little progress in tackling the UK’s electronic waste (e-waste) crisis, MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) have said.

An EAC report from November 2020 outlined the “huge human and environmental damage” that the extraction of raw materials needed for their production causes. E-waste, when not properly treated, can release toxic chemicals that damage human and animal health.

At the time, the government accepted or partly accepted many of the recommendations made in the report, but a recent assessment has shown that little progress has been made in the intervening years.

Research from Material Focus showed that the UK threw away nearly half a billion cheap electrical items such as headphones, cables, decorative lights and mini fans in 2023.

Annual spend on fast tech also reportedly passed the £2.8bn mark for the first time last year and there are over 100,000 tonnes of waste electricals thrown away yearly. In 2020, another study...