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Circular Economy: definition & examples | Sustainability Environment - YouTube
Channel: D茅veloppement Durable Illustr茅
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Hi Alex here. Today's video is about
circular economy. It is a term that we
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hear a lot these days.
I was asked many times to make a video
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about it so here it is. I will explain
what we mean by circular economy. I will
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go through all the things we can do to
go from our current economy to a
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circular one and I will use many
examples. If you stay untill the end, I
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will share a book with you that you can
read to learn more about it. You will
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see there is way more to it than just
recycling. Okay let's get drawing!
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When my son was three years old and asking his mummy what was this circular economy
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thing she was working on, here is what
she told him: it is when everything is
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healthy food for something else. So
simple and sweet. I loved it! In other
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words, it means running the economy like
nature runs its own business:
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plants use carbon dioxide and
nutrients to grow and produce oxygen.
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Animals use oxygen and create carbon
dioxide and nutrients. Nothing is wasted.
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It is a closed-loop system. Circular
economy is generally opposed to the
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linear economy take-make-waste we have been running for many years. Some people
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also use the term "cradle to cradle" as
opposed to cradle to grave.
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As explained in my triple bottom-line
video, the economy is part of society
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which is part of the environment. You can click here if you want to watch this
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video. Now let's look at the economy: we
can split into two categories the things
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that we need to run into closed loops: technical materials, biological materials.
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Technical materials have this typical
life cycle: raw materials are mined, the
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product is manufactured then it is
transported to be used until the end of
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its life. We often tend to think about
the end of life and the importance of
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recycling and this is true but for our
economy to be circular there are many
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things we can do before the end of life.
It starts with using resources that are
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already extracted. Say my product needs
copper. It is best to "mine" copper and
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that is not used anymore
(that we also called post-consumer)
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as opposed to mining some new one from the ground. Especially when you know that:
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1) copper is predicted to be mined out
worldwide by 2040 and 2) processing
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recycled copper uses only 10 to 20% of
the energy it takes to process new
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copper from virgin ore. When manufacturing my product I can design it so it can
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easily be dismantled and the copper can
easily be recycled next time. I can also
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manufacture my product so it lasts a
long time, so it can be maintained and
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repaired. I can design it so it uses as
little energy as possible. This TED video
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uses a great example of a tea kettle and
the fact that during commercial break of
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a popular TV show, England has to buy
nuclear power from France because
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millions of people go to the kitchen at
the same time to boil an entire two-liter
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kettle to make one cup of tea. Once
a product cannot be used anymore then it
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needs to be collected and recycled. Here
comes an important question: does the
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recycled material maintained its quality
to be used for similar applications? Or
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is it "down-cycled" into a material that
has a poorer quality? Down-cycled was a
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term from the book "cradle-to-cradle". You can find a link in the description below.
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Remember in a circular economy
everything is healthy food for something
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else. Nothing goes to landfill. Biological
materials are farmed or collected and
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then possibly processed and transported
before reaching the consumer. Once
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consumed that can be used to create
biogas, biochemicals or be composted.
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Finally they can go back to nature to
restore it. But again in a circular
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economy, nothing goes to landfill. Two transition
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strategies can be very helpful as we are
trying to create a circular economy:
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substitution and dematerialization.
Substitution is about using different
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resources to achieve the same goal. For
example the world is running out of
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lithium so unless we can recycle lithium
batteries more
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efficiently, sodium-ion batteries might
be a better option for car manufacturers
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in the future. Dematerialization refers
to using less of a resource to serve the
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same economic function in society. As an example, interface is the world's largest
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designer and maker of commercial modular carpet. But they don't sell the carpet
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anymore. Their customers buy the service of having carpet on their floor.
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Interface is in charge of maintaining
and repairing the carpet and they do
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that very efficiently because it is
their specialty and they control the
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entire process. Using tiles they can
replace only the ones that need
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replacing. The old tiles go back to the
factory to be recycled where new tiles
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are made with 98% recycled or bio-based
content. How is that for almost circular?
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Of course creating a circular economy is
only one piece of the sustainability
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puzzle and many other aspects have to be taken into account to get 100%
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sustainable: climate change,
sustainable energy, sustainable
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agriculture, social sustainability, etc. As
promised in the beginning, here is a
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great book I recommend if you want to
learn more. It is very well put together
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and it talks about circular economy in
the modern age. I will put a link in the
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description below. If you found this
video useful please like it, subscribe
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sustainabilityillustrated.com.Thank you to all our patrons and I will see you in the next video.
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