By Dr Ross Headifen
These days, the concept of circularity is the buzz word of the waste industry. Everyone wants to claim, mainly for their marketing purposes, they or their products are contributing to the circular economy.
If we want to stop the linear economy of make take and waste, then we have to be keeping materials in circulation. This means stopping the use of virgin materials and instead, reusing and or recycling materials to be remade into similar products, time and time again. The savings should be substantial in terms of costs and carbon foot prints. The Ellen McArthur foundation states its second principle of the circular economy is “to circulate products and materials at their highest value. This means keeping materials in use, either as a product or, when that can no longer be used, as components or raw materials. This way, nothing becomes waste and the intrinsic value of products and materials are retained”.
There are a number of different versions of circularity depending on who is promoting it. However, we need to be strict on our terms and definitions if we want to get to a circular economy and for people to trust these claims. In material circularity, the recovered material goes back to manufacturers to stop their virgin material inputs. It does not have to go back to the same manufacturer, but the material needs to go back to a manufacturer making a similar product level of usage. For example, a computer case, into a car dashboard part then into a TV frame etc. However, once we start down-cycling to lower level products, then circularity is broken as the higher level manufacturers need to use virgin inputs again.
Recycling is part of a circular economy but not all of it. For example, let’s take a company making and selling a product. The company takes in virgin materials and processes them into their product. Once the product is used, if it is downcycled into a simpler more basic item like a garden bench, then this has not stopped the company from continuing to bring in virgin material to produce their products. Not circular in this case.
Repurposing waste is often claimed as being circular as it is avoiding waste going to landfill. It makes for good headlines. For example, using plastic waste in road base or concrete construction is not circular. It is not returning the material to a manufacturer to stop them using virgin material to make a similar level of quality product as the original product was.
Another form of claimed circularity is circular energy, or claiming the embodied energy in a material. Not all material can be recycled and used to make products. Some have to be disposed of as waste – plastic for example, is essentially a solid fuel. If it is biodegraded in a landfill or burned in a waste to energy plant, a portion of the energy of the material can be captured and used to generate electricity to supply a manufacturing plant to make products. Here the energy of the material is circulated (one time only), not the physical material itself. There are several reasons why a material cannot be recycled. It may be the product itself, which could be a complex composite of laminates, or the recycling industry does not take that plastic type, or it is so damaged or contaminated that it is not viable to recycle. In many cases, the country of origin of the material simply does not have the recycling processing ability to recycle it or, even if it could be, reprocessed. Or maybe there is no demand for the recyclate as the country has insufficient manufacturing capacity. Shipping the recyclate off to another country to make more high-level products means the world becomes circular, but the country itself cannot.
Yet another claimed form of circularity and a long stretch of the meaning, is the circular plant matter, or the molecules from plant-based materials. The composting industry for example makes claims their products are circular, as the material biodegrades and is used as fertiliser food for new plants to grow in the years and decades in the future. Compostable products are not recyclable and have to be disposed of at a waste facility in order for them to break down. Special facilities are required for commercial compostable materials, and these are not readily available. Home compostable materials will biodegrade in landfills, so they do allow some of their embodied energy to be captured. In general, this form of circularity follows the linear make/take and waste model, with the down sides of needing virgin materials all the time and their associated higher energy usage. Anyone expecting a composable product made from a circular economy needs to do more research into the claim.
What is clear is that the above types of circularity are being claimed under the one umbrella and for those not understanding. This can be misleading to industry, government and consumers alike as to what they are really dealing with. The use of circularity in product marketing is growing rapidly. Where there is an advantage to be claimed, the circularity definition is altered.
For example, governments are trying to push circularity on to manufacturers to reduce our waste problems. This is predominantly material circularity though, hence there needs to be clear distinction made on any circularity claims as to what is actually being circulated. While circularity is in its infancy, now is the time to set these distinctions, be it with standards or industry accepted icons indicating they type claimed. In small manufacturing countries like Australia, circularity on a wide scale may not be economic, but on a world scale, full circularity could be achieved.