TY - JOUR
T1 - Circularity in Practice
T2 - Review of Main Current Approaches and Strategic Propositions for an Efficient Circular Economy of Materials
AU - Megevand, Benjamin
AU - Cao, Wen-Jun
AU - Di Maio, Francesco
AU - Rem, Peter
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - This paper aims to summarize, propose, and discuss existing or emerging strategies to shift towards a circular economy of materials. To clarify the landscape of existing circular practices, a new spectrum is proposed, from product-based strategies, where entire products go through several life cycles without being reprocessed, to material-based approaches, extracting, recycling, and reprocessing materials from the waste flow. As refillable packaging does not lose any functionality or value, when re-used through many life cycles, product-based strategies are globally extremely efficient and must be promoted. It appears however that their implementation is only possible at the scale of individual products such as packaging containers, relying on the cooperation of involved companies and consumers. It appears more and more urgent to focus as well on a more systematic and flexible material-oriented scheme. The example of circular glass recycling is a success in many countries, and technologies become nowadays available to extend such practices to many other materials, such as rigid plastics. An ideal would be to aim at an economy of materials that would imitate the continuous material cycle of the biosphere. Technological and business strategies are presented and discussed, aiming at a relevant impact on circularity.
AB - This paper aims to summarize, propose, and discuss existing or emerging strategies to shift towards a circular economy of materials. To clarify the landscape of existing circular practices, a new spectrum is proposed, from product-based strategies, where entire products go through several life cycles without being reprocessed, to material-based approaches, extracting, recycling, and reprocessing materials from the waste flow. As refillable packaging does not lose any functionality or value, when re-used through many life cycles, product-based strategies are globally extremely efficient and must be promoted. It appears however that their implementation is only possible at the scale of individual products such as packaging containers, relying on the cooperation of involved companies and consumers. It appears more and more urgent to focus as well on a more systematic and flexible material-oriented scheme. The example of circular glass recycling is a success in many countries, and technologies become nowadays available to extend such practices to many other materials, such as rigid plastics. An ideal would be to aim at an economy of materials that would imitate the continuous material cycle of the biosphere. Technological and business strategies are presented and discussed, aiming at a relevant impact on circularity.
KW - Circular economy
KW - Circularity
KW - Industrial ecology
KW - Recycling
KW - Sorting
KW - Sustainable development
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122968510&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/su14020962
DO - 10.3390/su14020962
M3 - Article
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 14
SP - 1
EP - 18
JO - Sustainability
JF - Sustainability
IS - 2
M1 - 962
ER -