What is this concept of Circularity?
Circularity - short for “the Circular Economy” is “ based on the principles of designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems” - The Ellen MacArthur Foundation. A circular economy builds and rebuilds overall system health.
The model recognizes:
- technical cycles - the human-made materials or substances hazardous to the environment, and rare metals
- biological cycles - the biodegradable raw materials obtained from nature.1
In the technical cycles, products are recovered and restored or remanufactured through the replacement of worn-out components. If not possible, the materials are re-used or used to make another product; and at the last resort, recycled.
In the biological cycles, materials are designed to feed back into the system through composting or anaerobic digestion. The goal is to regenerate living systems, like soil, and provide renewable resources that can be fed back into the economy.
Let’s use an example of a liquid hand soap pump dispenser to illustrate this the concept of designing for circularity.
Today, if you can find it, you can purchase a single-use plastic hand soap dispenser, a multi-pack, or a larger refill bottle of liquid hand soap. Each has packaging that must be disposed of though recycling, diversion to a waste to energy (WTE) facility, or disposal at a landfill.
Scenario 1, Current State: You purchase the refill for your hand pump dispenser. At that point, the refill bottle can be recycled, diverted to a WTE facility, or thrown away. Eventually, the plastic hand pump dispenser may stop working and needs to be replaced. The broken dispenser will be recycled or landfilled.
When the plastic is thrown away or burned in a WTE facility, it is taken out of the economic system. When it is recycled, a certain percentage of the plastic will return to the economic system for a time, but usually, it is downcycled into a product that may also be single-use or into another product that may be recycled (downcycled) again. No matter the timeframe, that plastic will eventually be landfilled or diverted to a WTE facility, taking its value out of the economic system.
Liquid hand soap manufacturers have taken some steps toward sustainability, offering refill bottles or even offering returnable bottles.
In a circularity system: Circularity is about re-designing the value chain - how the product is designed, packaged, distributed, and used. If we apply circular thinking to our liquid hand soap dispenser, a manufacturer would design out the waste, save cost and reinvigorate the circular economic system.
Key Insights:
- Liquid hand soap is mostly water.
- Much of the cost of packaging and shipping is related to the bulk of the dispensers and the volume and weight of the water in the soap.
- A small percentage of single-use plastic is returned to the system through recycling.
Scenario 2, A Better Way: The manufacture reformulates the product into a dry powder, packaging that powder in a starch-based dissolvable pod, and ship it in a bulk knock-down returnable package.
The consumer receives the pod and adds it to a durable stainless steel or glass pump bottle, to which they add water and shake it up. Since the product was re-formulated, the hand soap mixes well with the water and acts just like their past soaps. Since the new formula is 100% plant-based, it is easy on public sewers, septic systems, and biological cycle.
The consumer drops off their returnable packaging at the store and for being an active member in this circular system, they receive a discount on their next purchase. The packaging breaks down into a flat pack to save space and the store sends it back to the manufacturer on a return load after delivering a new product to the store.
In this second scenario, costs are reduced along the value chain. The manufacturer may have to pay a little more for the new formulation and to generate the dissolvable pods, but they don’t have to pay for shipping bulky dispensers or for shipping the water weight. The stores pay less because they eliminate single-use packaging. More of the product can be shipped on a single load and stocked on a store shelf. The consumer pays less if they return the knockdown packaging and are active participants in this system.
The thinking applied to this simple example is a fundamental change to the system that drives our wastes, reduces cost and greenhouse gas emissions, and keeps the circular economy going. This same thinking can be applied to just about any product that is part of the technical or biological cycles.
Final Thoughts
When we finally get to a post-COVID-19 world and we start to understand the toll on our society we may need to rethink our current economic system.
A redesign based on circularity will allow for a more resilient and sustainable system and will be necessary to tackle the other major global challenges we face as a society.
Circularity is a systems-based thinking approach to how we source materials, design, manufacture, package and distribute products. It maintains and in some cases increases the economic value of the materials and products that we already extract from our biological system.
Circularity requires material transparency, products built for durability, and re-manufacturability and it requires changes to our distribution system and how consumers use products.
Circularity is not recycling on steroids, but a new economic model.
- “Biological and Technical Cycles”. University of Helsinki https://blogs.helsinki.fi/inventionsforcirculareconomy/circular-economy/biological-and-technical-cycles/
Author’s Note:
Allsteel does not manufacture or have any affiliation with manufacturers of hand soap. This illustrative example was chosen as it is a product that most readers would easily understand, and it is timely with all our collective efforts to wash our hands to help deter the spread of the Coronavirus.
Additional Sources:
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/what-is-the-circular-economy
https://community.materialtrader.com/the-circular-economy-more-than-just-recycling-better/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_economy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbbQaBM846Q&list=PLXT_ozykGVakV38sna_tXQDvbyrgF-4vw