Rethinking resource use: why we should all love the circular economy
Waste can be exciting stuff — no, really! October 14 Associate and energy expert Rachel Stanley handpicks some examples of the circular economy in action.
Every year, the UK produces millions of tonnes of waste. In 2012, 48.5 million tonnes of waste was sent to landfill — that means 48.5 million tonnes of resources have been fashioned, used and discarded forever. I’ve always witnessed this rather like watching a horror film: awaiting the impending doom, helpless to do anything. Yes, I try to recycle (mostly), but in the big scheme of things, what difference will one or two recycled plastic bottles make?
Until I heard about the circular economy, that is.
What does that mean exactly? WRAP defines the circular economy as “an alternative to a traditional linear economy (make, use, dispose) in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life.”
What excites me about this is that it considers at every stage of the value chain what can be done to minimise material use, and maximise the total life of each resource. This opens up a host of creative ways of reducing, reusing and recycling right from the start of the design process. Here are some of my favourite examples:
The Fairphone — Circular through design and manufacture
The Fairphone aims “to improve the electronics value chain, one step at a time”. Central to this is a focus on longevity and repairability, extending the phone’s usable life. So the phone is designed for disassembly: if one bit breaks, you can buy a spare and fix it. It has been designed with great specification too, so you won’t want to throw it away after a year like so much other technology.
Mud Jeans — Circular through creative retail models
Mud Jeans “dream of a world in which there is no such thing as waste”. How? By giving you the option to rent your jeans, rather than buy. (Rental models encourage manufacturers to build for longevity, and help enable the reuse of materials at end of life.) And if you return your jeans when you no longer wear them, Mud can reuse the materials — and will give you a discount on your next product.
Net-Works — Circular through the recycling of resources
Net-Works recycles discarded fishing nets into carpet tile. So fishing communities in developing countries sell waste nets back into a global supply chain, providing a source of income for them and positively impacting marine and freshwater ecosystems in the long term.
There are many more pioneers in this field, including Interface (the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpet, who on top of developing Net-Works have transformed their whole value chain), and others like Biobean, the Rubbish Diet and Restart. If you want to know more, please get in touch as I would love to share, and otherwise, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a great place to start.
