According to the Ella McArthur Foundation "The circular economy is a system where materials never become waste and nature is regenerated"
Take a look at this illustration above, you can see from this that there are three categories listed: Linear, Recycling and Circular.
A Linear economy focuses on take, make, waste. That is simply it. One very straight line from start to finish. We make something, use it, then dispose of it into landfill or incineration. An example of this would be a single use bottle made from virgin plastic, which is thrown in landfill - not into a recycling stream.
This is the most unsustainable of the three options.
The Recycyling economy focuses on take, make, recycle, which is sometimes referred to as 'closing the loop'. The loop is closed when waste items are recycled and new products are made from that recycled material. This is more sustainable than linear but not as sustainable as a circular economy.
A Circular economy is different to recycling in the fact that it aims to stop waste from being produced in the first place. It too works on a closed loop system but as an addition it encourages the concept of reuse and repair. The focus here is on keeping the original material in circulation for as long as possible and this can be achieved by; maintaining, sharing, hiring, borrowing, reusing, refurbishing, or re-manufacturing items.
A circular economy still includes recycling as this is a very important step to ensure that materials are kept in the loop for as long as possible but it should be considered one of the final options, after all of the other areas of reuse have been exhausted.
There are some incredible innovations appearing on the market to help eliminate waste from our economy which you can read about here and it gives us hope that the world is moving in the right direction. Not in a straight line, but instead in beautiful circles.
To read about how we're working towards a circular economy check out our sustainability pledge.
