Reference News Network reported on February 19 that the British "New Scientist" weekly published an article titled "The End of Garbage: a Grand Plan to Build a Truly Circular Economy" in an issue of the British "New Scientist" weekly magazine on February 12, and the author is Joshua Haugego. The full text is excerpted below:
Many of us, at least in the wealthier parts of the world, are no strangers to the feeling of buying, possessing, and discarding too much. We're likely to feel a little guilty, and maybe even try to do something like ditch plastic straws, save tote bags for shopping, and relentlessly sort recyclables.
We may also understand that this is not enough. To satisfy our materialistic desires, humans now use about 100 billion tons of matter every year. More than 90% of these are pure raw materials mined, drilled and scavenged from the earth's surface. But only 30 billion tonnes are used to make permanent products, and the rest are either burned as fuel or discarded after a short period of use – each stage of which pollutes the land, water and air and brings about greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
Can we do better? The concept of a "circular" economy has been popular for some time, referring to the reuse of all items to a considerable extent and the absence of garbage. People tend to dismiss this idea as a confused fantasy, but recently the tone of the argument has changed. This is not only because we finally realize how much we have affected the planet and how much trouble it has accumulated for us, but also because we have more and more ideas and technologies that will not only reduce the damage to the planet by ourselves and our own consumption patterns, but may even benefit the planet. Satisfying our materialistic desires in a more circular, sustainable way is certainly feasible, but it requires a radical reimagining of our way of life.
Law introduces "Garbage Eradication Law"
The circular economy is based on four basic principles: reducing the use of items, extending the use of time, recycling, and maximizing the generation of useless by-products that promote natural regeneration. Most of the actions that have driven the circular economy to function have been to increase recycling and reuse. There are two key data here: the end-of-life recovery rate of a product, i.e. how many elements of a scrapped product end up being used for other items; and the other is the raw material recovery rate, that is, how many elements in a new product come from recycled materials.
Achieving a grander vision of a circular economy will require significant adjustments in behavior and society. It's still early days, but there are already signs that some areas are making such adjustments. Amelia of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in the UK said that a bill with real boldness is being implemented that can greatly promote the development of the circular economy. And France is at the forefront. As of 2019, France throws away new unsold products worth around 630 million euros each year. For the first time in the world, brunei Poisson, then environmental official, led legislation banning the destruction of such unsold goods.
On this basis, a broad bill, which came into effect last year, was introduced, entitled "Promoting the Circular Economy and Eliminating Waste Laws". The law sets the goal of recycling all plastics by 2025 and eliminating single-use plastic products entirely by 2040. Single-use plastic tea bags, tableware and other everyday items have been banned. The Act also introduces a "repair index", which is a score from 1 to 10 based on the difficulty of repair of the article. As of January 2021, certain types of goods on sale must be marked with a "Repair Index," including televisions, washing machines, and smartphones.
Perhaps the most bold element of the act is the principle called producer's subsequent responsibility, which means that even if a product is discarded, the manufacturer should be held accountable, thus encouraging the manufacturer to reuse it. Such policies are not the first, but they have never been written into law or fully implemented, let alone in areas that consume a lot of raw materials, such as construction.
Start the wheel of the circular economy
The EU also intends to promote a circular economy. The UK government said it would take action against planned scrapping of electronics, such as requiring companies to provide spare parts.
Michael Braungart, a German environmental protection organization, said companies are also increasingly involved. Braungart said the increase in business interest is largely driven by self-interest considerations: Profits rise if energy continues to make the same products from cheaper scraps instead of pure raw materials. This vision extends even to complex products such as automobiles.
Similar concepts are being implemented in many parts of the world, albeit on a smaller scale for the time being. In the Danish port city of Kalundborg, a number of industrial parks exchange scrap for the production of useful items. For example, biological wastewater from an insulin plant is transported to a nearby plant and converted into fertilizer and biogas enough to power 6,000 homes. The Yorkshire Water Works in the United Kingdom intends to practice recycling principles in the wastewater treatment process, such as allowing wastewater to flow through server clusters to cool down servers, rather than using more conventional electric fans and air conditioners.
If the wheel of the circular economy is slowly kicked off by reducing the use of pure raw materials, and accelerating it through appropriate incentives and regulatory frameworks, there is a very different but fundamental shift that is just beginning to be seriously discussed: a radical reduction in the production and use of goods.
The "performance economy" sells services
This is known as the "performance economy," a term coined by the Swiss architect Walter Stachel in the 1990s to describe a way of acting with a priority goal of meeting societal needs rather than making more products.
Car-sharing companies are already practicing this principle. Such businesses can be seen as moving from selling cars to selling services to meet mobility needs. German electronics company Philips now sells lighting services to hotels and office buildings on a subscription basis, and when property managers pay a fixed amount, Philips can ensure stable lighting and repair it in the event of a malfunction. French tire company Michelin also "rents" tire services to institutions with large fleets, such as military customers.
Switching completely to this model means that jobs are shifting from manufacturing to maintenance and repair, a drastic change that needs to be carefully managed.
"Circulation" can also promote prosperity
No matter how difficult it is to achieve a change in behavior, it is no longer questionable that moving towards a more circular economy is what the planet needs, and we need to do more than just switch to different bags and ditch plastic straws than we do now.
The International Resources Commission is the body established by the United Nations to monitor the use of substances in the world. In 2019, the International Commission on Resources released the Global Resource Outlook, which assessed the possible impact of moving to a resource-efficient economy. The report concludes that the living standards of the population in the circular economy can continue to rise. This is perhaps the vicious circle we need to break most on our way to a more sustainable future – the idea that more and more items can only flourish.
Source: Reference News Network