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Hi, if you watched the sustainability thinking videos,
you know that circular thinking is one of the key elements of sustainability.
I want to build on that concept in this short lecture on the circular economy.
There's growing interest in developing a circular economy.
You can find lots of great information at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and
there are several online classes devoted to the topic.
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Every year, about 2.2 billion tons of waste is dumped.
Municipal waste from cities, that's trash picked up in cities,
is about 1.3 billion tons.
With population growth, and more people moving to cities.
Plus, people getting a little richer.
The amount of waste could double over the next 15 or 20 years.
Add to this the fact that commodity prices have increased about 150%,
since the year 2000.
What all this means is that demand for raw materials will increase, prices for
raw materials will rise.
And all of the environmental and
social impacts of producing raw materials will also increase.
Air and water pollution, deforestation, mining waste and so on.
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When you put these forecasts together you almost have to conclude that
this future cannot work.
It certainly is unsustainable very long if at all.
The notion of a circular economy seems like the only long term solution.
To move toward a circular economic system,
there are several things that need to happen.
Probably they have to happen simultaneously rather than in some order.
Here's my list, and probably it's not complete, but
it will give you an idea of the direction we need to head.
So you can steer your company that way.
First, we need new materials that can be produced from recovered raw materials.
Using limited amounts of chemicals and energy for the recovery.
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This could be by offering upgrades, easy repairs, some sort of remanufacturing.
Remanufacturing is sometimes called refurbishing.
Here's an example.
Apple sells refurbished computers, iPads, and other products.
These products have been checked, repaired if necessary, and
have a one-year warranty.
The next step in remanufacturing is upward remanufacturing.
In upward remanufacturing, the old product is disassembled and
it's cleaned, inspected.
It's repaired if necessary and it's upgraded with newer or
next generation components.
This produces a product that's not the original first generation product, but
a second generation product.
Theoretically, this could go on indefinitely if the original design was
done properly.
The original design needs to be designed with multiple life cycles in mind.
Probably through some sort of modularity that allows component clusters
to be removed, cleaned, repaired, or replaced.
Next, we need policies, markets and technologies.
That make identifying and
purchasing recycled materials easy with some sort of quality insurance.
This may mean limiting the types of plastic to some set
that can be sorted most easily.
So the pure resin streams can be reprocessed into their original polymers.
Already there's a lot of activity in this field with color recognition system,
bar code reading systems.
And get this, infrared laser beams that shine on plastic items.
They detect the different grades of plastic then little puffs of air
separate them into different bins.
We need to be able to maintain food supplies for
a growing population while maintaining soil fertility.
Depleted soils need to be restored,
in fact we need to begin thinking about how to create a restorative economy.
This work is starting, but it has a long way to go.
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Finally we need to make sure that market prices
reflect the full life cycle cost of products.
This means that external costs like pollution have to be factored into prices.
For natural resources depletion has to be accounted for.
Without accurate prices customers can't make good choices.
Here is a diagram from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation that shows how a circular
economy could be restorative.
The diagram is complicated so
I'll post the booklet it comes from in class resources.
The title is Towards a Circular Economy, Business Rationale for
an Accelerated Transition.
It's about 20 pages long but it'd be a great starting place if you want to learn
more or download it as a future reference.
If such an economy can be created, and it has to happen some time or
we're going to run out of resources.
We could begin to think not of limits and austerity, but
of there being enough for everyone to have acceptable lives.
Realize that being part of a circular economy is something companies need to
prepare for.
If you can help your company get ready that'd be a great step forward.
Thanks.
John ByrdSenior Instructor
Kenneth BettenhausenProfessor
