What is the circular economy and can it really work?
Let’s look at material ‘stuff’ within our economy. The living material of plants and animals will die and decompose and become food for other creatures. We may utilise this decomposing material to help produce food and trees etc. and so keep it going round ie- in a circular economy.
The technical material is stuff we make out of inert materials. Fridges, cars and phones, plastic bottles etc. After World War 2 it was considered sound economics to produce goods to be later disposed of and replaced. Making things, created work and supplied an income to purchase the goods.
Our economies in the 21st century are still striving to maintain this idea of growth, where replacement and acquisition of goods is the main goal rather than repair or reuse of existing goods. As long the extraction of raw materials is cheaper (for business), recycling existing goods and materials is slow. But we don’t have enough virgin materials to maintain this growth.
Can the circular economy work for ‘technical’ goods? One example is incorporating glass, soft plastics and toner cartridge and old asphalt Roads from recycled materials. However I ask will this be viable to continually recycle after the life of the asphalt into a similar product or a lesser one? What is lost in the conversion, will it be economical?
Also goods can became more complicated, combining materials (eg chip board wood and glues) makes recycling tricky or uneconomical.
When China restricted the import of recycled materials in 2018, the consuming world went into panic. The Federal Government set targets for banning the export of various products unless ready for remanufacture. Waste Export bans
They introduced incentives to recycle in Australia through the Recycling Modernisation Fund. Yes, useful and being taken up by State Governments and private industry. Recycling Fund take up in WA.
However to be truly ‘circular’ we need incentives or penalties to collect and reprocess the goods and materials. The Containers for Change (CFC) scheme operating in WA, with similar schemes in most other States gives incentive for collection of materials into central locations.
Product Stewardship Schemes is where the manufacturers take financial responsibility to process their end of life goods. The National TV and Computer Recycling Scheme established in 2011 and the more recent Battery Stewardship Scheme 2022 both go some way into collection and recycling of goods but are not close to a ‘circular’ system. Both are voluntary schemes and do not guarantee the collection of said materials and the on going processing into goods kept in the technical economy.
A way to keep manufacturers incentivised is to keep the ownership of the goods with the manufacturer, ie consumers rent the goods. A long standing international example is the carpet manufacturer Interface . They hire out carpet squares and replace these as required, recycling the old squares back into new product. When the ownership stays with the manufacturer they keep track of their goods and are motivated to keep the product in working order rather than disposing. If we develop manufacturing industries again in Australia, we should look at this concept.
I suggest we are a long way from being ‘circular’ in the technical material markets and only part way in the organic markets.
We need to look at the whole journey of discarded materials, collection, reprocessing, markets and on-going ‘circles’. It is not enough to say we are circular after one cycle. Whether it is carrots (like the CFC schemes) or sticks (banning to landfill), the processes need to be in place for the whole journey.
Give me your thoughts.
March 2022
