What is a circular economy?

This is a question I’ve seen floating around the internet a lot lately: what is a circular economy? With growing environmental and social movements, creating a circular economy is the focus of businesses, municipalities and governments alike in their journeys towards sustainability.

For those without an economic, business or environmental background the term “circular economy” may be completely foreign. What exactly is a circular economy, and why is it important? Keep reading to find out!

The water bottle exercise

I want you to think of an item you use every day and describe the life cycle of that item, from start to finish, in three steps. What are the steps? For example, what are the steps required to produce a plastic water bottle and get it to you, the consumer?

The three steps I think of are production, consumption and disposal. First, the bottle is produced. Raw materials are extracted from the Earth and processed into the bottle; water is drained from natural aquifers, purified and bottled.

Next, the items are shipped to stores where you purchase and consume them. You may consume one bottle of water a day, but likely more than that. Once the bottle is empty, you throw it away: hopefully it is recycled, but more often they end up in the landfill, even when you tossed it into recycling. In fact, only 14 percent of water bottles in Ontario are recycled. The rest go to landfill. The same process happens every day, millions of times a day.

The linear economy

This process is a linear economy. Natural resources are extracted, made into products that we buy and consume, and then those materials are disposed of. The resources and energy that went into producing those items cannot be recovered, instead lost in landfill. If we want to create more products we have to extract more resources and use more energy, again to have it all wasted in landfill maybe a few days after all of these processes happen.

The linear economy model dominates our world. In the fast paced, consumption-driven society we live in, we need things immediately and in abundance. The only way can meet this demand is to constantly extract, produce and throw away.

Problems with the linear economy

This system is unsustainable. The way I like to think of it is a road: on the left side of the road you have a pile of natural, raw resources. This pile is massive. In the middle of the road there is a pit stop: you, the consumer. On the right side of the road, the final destination, you have the landfill. This pile is tiny.

We start at the beginning of the road, at the natural resources. We quickly move to the centre, and as we use products they go to landfill. The resources pile quickly shrinks while the landfill pile grows. Eventually the resource pile is so small that there’s nothing left to make more products; the landfill pile is overflowing into the consumer’s life. The more we use resources without recovering any of them, the sooner we are going to run out of resources to make the products.

Furthermore, landfills are not infinite. They run out of space and close down. According to the Government of Ontario, there are 2,735 small landfill sites in the province: 850 are open, and 1,525 are closed. More are closing every year as they run out of space. Where will our trash go when they run out, and what will we do when we run out of resources? We are (quite literally) running ourselves into a deep, inescapable hole.

The solution: building a circular economy

Let’s go back to that image of the road. Now take that right side of the road with the landfill and stretch it, looping it all the way around to the left side where the natural resources are. Congrats, you’ve made a circular economy. The concept of a circular economy is exactly as it sounds: extract, use, then reuse instead of dispose, bringing us back to the beginning of the cycle.

There is no “beginning” in the circular economy model because everything is connected and works symbiotically. We design products with the intent to reuse their materials; we build a market out of waste, turning it into energy to power production, or recycle the materials to make new products. We are creating new jobs in the waste field, from engineering the waste recycling and repurposing facilities, to policy analysts that build the regulations around processes, to sustainability offices that advocates for the circular economy and more. A circular economy essentially takes the saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” to a whole new level. And that level is sustainable.

The circular economy model removes the idea that products and materials have an end-life. It puts responsibility on producers to develop ways to recover their products after the initial use. It reduces our waste going to landfill, emissions contributing to climate change and preserves the limited resources we have left.

The way forward

Companies are working to develop new operations that reflect the circular economy model while others are redesigning their old practices. They are building a stronger sense of community, working together and building new relationships to support one another and their businesses. The public has a stronger say in the practices going on in their communities, shaping the way these organizations run. Not only is this model environmentally sustainable, it’s also socially sustainable.

The circular economy model is being adapted all over the world, from small municipalities making a pledge to build a local circular economy to entire countries. As part of Ontario’s 2016 Waste Free Ontario Act, the province pledged to build a circular economy, developing the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act. The Act is centralized around the idea that producers need to take greater responsibility for the end-life of their products, and that we need to fundamentally shift how we think about waste.

Waste is not gross or useless. It represents opportunity for our communities, for the province and for the entire world. It pushes us to be innovative, collaborative, self-aware and reliable.

Final thoughts

Building a circular economy is not an immediate process. Most communities following a linear model that are just beginning to shift this way. It takes time and continuous effort from everyone — producers, consumers (us), governmental leaders, activists, everyone. The more organizations and communities that pledge to build a circular economy, the easier it will be and the more partnerships we can create.

Is your community pledging to build a circular economy? I encourage you to find out! Check your municipality’s website. Write to your local government to push for a circular economy. See what you can do to support a circular economy in your own life.

Additional resources

On top of reducing, reusing and recycling products, check out these posts I wrote for tips on adapting a zero or low-waste lifestyle:

We all have a part to play in building a circular economy. Every action you take to support the model will bring us one step closer. The only way to create a circular economy is if we all start taking action, right now. The sooner that we do, the sooner we will create a sustainable planet.

Did you know what the circular economy model was before reading this post? What do you think of it? What are you doing in your life, right now, to support a circular economy? How are you going to adopt more sustainable practices in your life? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time!