The Circular Economy: What Is It and Why Is It Important?

Sustainability
Written By Share Skipton

We see the word sustainability used a lot more now than ten years ago, and ‘to promote a circular economy’ features amongst Share Skipton’s own objectives. These aren’t new concepts, but what do they really mean and how do they relate to one another? What would a truly sustainable Skipton even look like?

Here, we’ll explore what a modern circular economy is, how it differs from what we see around us today, and the practical steps needed to ensure a more sustainable future.

 

What is Sustainability?

Sustainable, at its simplest, means ‘able to go on’. Whether it’s pacing yourself for a long run or producing enough food and power for an entire country, supply always needs to satisfy demand; safely removing harmful by-products is just as important.

In the context of our modern, interconnected society, sustainability has been described as ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. But we can’t talk about needs without thinking of the people who have them, nor do we just want to ‘survive’ or ‘exist’, we want to live, develop and do well for ourselves.

And so, sustainable development is where we aim to balance:

  • Life on Earth has had to get by with the same set of resources for the past few million years: besides light from the Sun, everything is finite. We depend on a healthy environment and resilient ecosystems to – for free – recycle the essentials for us: clean air, water, and the conditions needed to produce food and materials. Beyond the practicalities of allowing parts of this planetary life-support system to fail, there are also the ethical implications of habitat destruction and driving mass extinction.

  • A fair and equal society where everyone has a good standard of living promotes peace and stability: good for us as individuals, but predictable outcomes also make sustainable systems far easier to maintain. When it comes to dealing with the unexpected, the best decisions tend to be the ones made by the people they effect, so, for issues as far-reaching as environment and economy, it really is a group effort and needs everyone to be properly represented.

  • An upwards economy, when managed responsibly and in tandem with the other sustainability objectives, builds upon its own success by investing in people and planet rather than exploiting them. It creates its value by powering innovation and opening up opportunities: medical advances, new manufacturing methods and other emerging technologies all have the potential to improve standards for everyone, to the benefit of this and subsequent generations.

 

What is a Circular Economy?

If sustainability is the overall goal, then a circular economy is one piece in the puzzle of how to get there.

Spot the odd one out:


Although we’ve worked in a ‘take-make-dispose’ fashion for much of human history, increases in scale since the industrial revolution have made it unsustainable in the modern world. Toxic by-products and synthetic materials are released into the environment at levels it just isn’t equipped to handle, and everything is exacerbated by run-away consumerism, population boom and over-demand.

So, taking a cue from natural processes that’ve been churning away reliably for billions of years, we can fix our short-sighted, one-way ‘linear economy’ by creating loops to make it more self-sustaining. It calls on manufacturers, distributors and all of us to keep resources in use for as long as possible, instead of continuing to wastefully create, sell and dispose of goods like there’s no tomorrow. Once the cycle’s established, the need to find and extract materials from across the globe is drastically reduced, and waste levels become much more manageable.

A note on recycling ♻️

We’re all recycling now, doesn’t that make it circular already? Well, for various reasons, recycling can only ever be part of the solution.

Recycling is about waste materials, but not all materials can be recycled. Even recyclable plastics and paper can only be processed a certain number of times before their quality degrades too much to be re-formed:

Glass
 Can be recycled indefinitely
Most metals
 Can be recycled indefinitely
Wood
Highly variable (depending on chemical treatment)
Paper
5-7 times
Recyclable plastics
2-3 times at best
Non-recyclables
 Landfill or sometimes burnt as fuel

Recycling is a very ‘leaky’ process. If batches of these otherwise-recyclable materials are contaminated, it becomes a lot harder to sift and separate the good from the bad – in many cases the additional cost means they just go to landfill along with non-recyclables. (which is why it’s important to follow local recycling instructions)

Again, recycling focuses on the end of a product’s life. From design to production to transportation and use, each stage comes with its own waste and pollution overheads. Even the recycling process itself can be quite energy intensive, such as when melting down metals and glass.

Thankfully, there are lots of ways to extend the lifespan of products, so we don’t have to resort to pulverising them before their time.

Underpinning it all is an appreciation not only of our own actions, but of how we can support the cycle as a whole: being aware of where things have come from and what will happen to them afterwards.

 
 

How Can We Transition to a Circular Economy?

A lot of these words sound familiar? The good news is that many of the basic skills and services needed in a circular economy are already out there, they just aren’t being used on nearly a big enough scale. See how many reuse and repair places you can spot next time you’re in town, compared to those still pushing disposable products and the ‘latest trends’.

Some changes are simple things we could all be doing right now, but others require businesses to take on more wholly-sustainable ways of operating, either by their own initiative or imposed by regulation and law.

 

Manufacturing practices

There’s a responsibility on manufacturers to build products with longevity in mind, meaning they’re sturdily constructed but are also easy to maintain and repair in the long run. Pieces prone to breakage must be replaceable without causing further unnecessary damage or waste, and spare components made just as available as the products themselves. By coming up with modular designs that use standardised, interchangeable and upgradable parts, there’s little reason high-quality refurbishments couldn’t become the norm.

Likewise, new product lines should be made by disassembling and reusing older ones wherever possible. Companies across all industries are already seeing the financial and reputational benefits of using circularly-sourced materials in place of virgin ones alone, a trend that will continue as recycling and reclamation continues to scale up. What’s more, by creating products and distribution channels in a way that makes them more cost-effective to reclaim from afterwards, a single traditional procurement batch can be made to feed multiple production runs, with only minimal top-ups needed.

*Note that, when we say ‘manufacturers’, we mean it in the loosest sense. All of this applies as much to building houses and roads as it does to producing TVs, trainers or tape measures.

 

Retail practices

Retailers will continue to sell the everyday essentials, but rentals and leases on occasional-use items need to phased in as an alternative to each household wastefully buying their own. The growing number of libraries of things worldwide is proof customers are onboard, and we’re only doing all this until we no longer need to be. ;)

As the market shifts from products to services, there are lots of opportunities for businesses to fill vital roles in their communities: stocking greater volumes of second-hand items, fielding orders for spare parts, and perhaps even specialising in repair and modification services of their own. Manufacturers can do things to support this new way of working too, for example ensuring warranty terms take transfer of ownership into account on second-hand sales.

And, although we’ve used the visual of a council wheelie bin to represent collection/recovery, the most reliable way for producers to save their valuable resources from landfill is to arrange collection themselves. Retailers are well positioned to facilitate reverse logistics at scale, accepting trade-ins, take-backs and drop-offs from customers to feed back to manufacturers.

 

Individual habits

Look around your home – what do you think you’ll do with everything when you no longer want or need it? When might that be? And we really do mean everything: furniture and appliances right through to clothes, kitchenware and decor.

As consumers, we need to take good care of the belongings we already have and not be so quick to discard them. Beyond learning the basics of how to stitch a seam or change a fuse, or restyling a room’s furniture with a new coat of paint, when and where to seek assistance should be our first thought. There are already folks around town who offer servicing, adjustment and repairs for all sorts of items (often at a fraction of the cost of buying a replacement), but it’s up to us to support and use them so their business can grow.

For things that wear out frequently, it might be worth looking up repair tutorials or skills workshops, making sure you’re following the care instructions, and being more selective about quality and after-sales support in future.

Items you no longer want can be sold second-hand or given away easier than ever thanks to the internet, helping others to access the things they need more freely. If you notice a pattern of barely using the things you buy, think about why you’re accumulating them in the first place and take steps to avoid that behaviour next time: talk to friends and family about sharing, or consider the benefits of renting, rather than defaulting to buying your own.

If you’d like other pointers on sustainable living and eco-friendly ways to save money, check out some of our other articles on the subject.

 

A multi-layered approach

We mentioned earlier that circular economies are one step on the road to true sustainability. Look back at the diagram and you’ll see that, even though the need for raw materials and waste disposal are greatly reduced, this method alone can’t eliminate them entirely. Each stage of the cycle also still has its own associated carbon emissions and energy demands, though the shorter sub-loops help minimise these over an extended period.

What a circular economy does is to slow environmental degradation down to a more manageable level. Ideally we reach a pace that nature can cope with and begin recover from, but at the very least it gives us time for complementary programmes and technologies to catch up:

  • Fully-renewable energy will bring the carbon footprint of powering our economy towards zero.

  • New biodegradable materials, once developed and properly managed, will reduce the long-term harm of waste, allowing it to re-enter the natural biochemical cycles we saw above.

  • Sharing knowledge and resources around the world is essential so nobody, anywhere is left behind, and helps to feed back and strengthen our own understanding.

  • Carbon capture, regreening and other clean-up and restoration efforts initially offset then begin to reverse some of the damage we’ve already done.

  • Further advances will continue to improve our environmental-societal-economic potential, allowing us to leave the world better than we found it, for everyone who follows.

 

In the midst of the cost-of-living and ongoing climate crises, Share Skipton was formed by local residents wanting to do their part to turn things around.
By maintaining a Library of Things, we facilitate community sharing across a whole host of fun and functional items; the addition of Repair Cafés (later this year) will help people keep their own belongings in use for longer. In general, we’re here to assist everyone adopt more-sustainable practices however we can.

We’re entirely run by volunteers at the moment and would love whatever help you can offer! You may have already met some of our part-time librarians – by joining as one yourself, you give us added flexibility and extend the level of service we can provide.

We’re also grateful for the extensive work volunteers do behind the scenes: if you’re a dab hand with a repair kit or have creative ideas for social media content, click here to find out more.

The vast majority of our collection comes from donated items, a handful more funded by monetary donations. Please see the Support Us page if you’d like to contribute in either of those ways, or have a look at our Supporter membership option.

 
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