Costs for key British industries such as aviation and electronics will soar unless the government takes action over the rising price of raw materials, the UK's manufacturing body has warned.

The price of some materials, such as the metals crucial to modern electronics and car manufacturing (including the McLaren plant in Woking), has doubled in the past decade, and there is greater volatility in prices for some commodities than at any time in the past century, including during wartime. This is posing severe problems for manufacturers as material input costs represent about 40% of overheads, according to the EEF.

The organisation said other countries were taking action to protect supplies, for instance through recycling policies, but accused the UK government of complacency and failing to act. Its report, Materials for Manufacturing: Safeguarding Supply, published on Tuesday, found at least 20 key materials, including rare earths and metals, were deemed to have "supply risks".

Beryllium, indium and germanium are among the elements in demand for consumer electronics, from mobile phones to computers, and for which easily accessible reserves are believed to be limited. Niobium, magnesium and fluorite are used in manufacturing aeroplanes, cars and in optics. The supply of some "rare earths", used in applications from electronics to renewable energy, has been restricted by China, which is gathering up an increasing supply of the world's most valuable materials.

Industry leaders are calling on the government to help secure threatened supply chains, such as links to China, and to improve recycling capabilities, and for companies to increase their focus on efficiency.

"It is the end of an era [of cheap goods and materials]," said Susanne Baker, adviser at the EEF. "We are shocked by the [lack of] political leadership and ambition [in the UK]. Where our government is, on the whole, prepared to leave this issue to market forces, it seems that other countries are not prepared to take that risk. We were deeply impressed by how other countries are taking an integrated approach, combining innovation, data improvements and introducing policies to stimulate resource efficiency, alongside attempts to improve and enhance recycling."

According to the EEF organisation, which represents UK manufacturers, at least three quarters of European manufacturers have seen their raw material costs increase since 2000, the EEF says. Demand for certain key materials, such as metals, is soaring as rapidly developing economies are eating up an increasing proportion of the world's supply, creating shortages and driving up prices.

Consumers will also have to adjust to rising prices for their goods, after decades in which advancing technology and globalised markets have led to an expectation of price falls. Recent years have also seen rises in food prices, which had been on a downward trajectory until the mid-2000s, and of energy prices.more stringent EU recycling targets were proposed in Brussels last week, the UK's governing coalition was notably cool. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which leads on waste policy, told the Guardian that the targets to recycle 70% of household waste by 2030 might face opposition from the UK: "We think the proposals may have underplayed the potential costs to business, householders and local authorities and will want to consider the impacts fully before we respond. We need to ensure that any new legislation would meet our priorities to protect the environment, incentivise growth and avoid unnecessary burdens."

At present, large amounts of the UK's waste are exported abroad for recycling, and the valuable materials are reused there in manufacturing businesses.

Demand for all commodities is expected to rise by between 30% and 80% by the end of the next decade, driven by hundreds of millions of people around the world being raised from poverty into the emerging middle classes of previously poor countries.

The increasing demand for metals has been starkly illustrated in the UK in the past decade, with trains delayed by thieves stealing copper communication cables along the railway lines, and manhole covers disappearing as they are sold for scrap.

Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust, the government-sponsored body that helps UK businesses to cut their greenhouse gases, said: "As the global economy and population continue to grow, the rate that we are using up a finite pool of resources continues to increase. The looming resource crunch poses a fundamental risk to the UK's long-term economic development, with consequences far more severe than those of the financial crisis in the past five years."

Manufacturers would need to seek "efficiencies, innovation and redesign" of their goods in order to combat the rising costs, he said.

Jonathan Short, deputy chairman of Eco Plastics, which specialises in recycling, said that using resources more efficiently through recycling materials was essential to the UK's future competitiveness in the global economy.

"What the government needs to understand is that there is a compelling business case for recycling. Soon enough, depleting natural resources will render producing goods from virgin materials very expensive, not to mention environmentally unfriendly. The earlier we place recycling at the centre of economic policy, the sooner we can retain the commercial value of those resources here in the UK, and develop an economy that is self-sufficient and secure."

He blamed a lack of leadership and clear policy for the UK throwing valuable plastics into landfill each year when they could be recycled. "Rubbish is not waste, it is a resource and an essential cog in the economy."