The Circular Economy: What it is and Why it Matters

I recently presented a webinar as part of Harvey Mudd College’s Mudd Talks Series, “Consumer Electronics and the Circular Economy.” During the presentation, I ran a poll asking participants which of several terms were familiar. Here are the results:

Circular Economy—58%

Greenwashing—58%

Triple Bottom Line—17%

Conflict Minerals—75%

I planned to explain them all unless there were any with only “yes” votes, in which case I would breeze through those. The immediate order of business, therefore, was to make sure everyone understood the title of my presentation. (If you want to learn about the other terms from my Mudd Talk, you can view the recording.)

I’m guessing that many of my blog readers are also unfamiliar with the circular economy. If you were in the audience on April 21, or you read my books and remember what you learned, you can skip the next few paragraphs. Otherwise, please keep reading.

Our current economy is primarily a linear one. The linear economy depends on a continuous stream of extraction and production. Here’s how it has been working for many decades. We:

Extract resources (mineral ores, oil, sand, wood) from the Earth,

Use those resources to make engineered materials (metals, plastic, glass, paper, etc.),

Use those materials to make products (electronic devices, books, cars, food containers, etc.),

Dispose of the products when they wear out or we no longer want them.

Image credit Sirajum Munir Galib. From Rethink the Bins by Julia L F Goldstein.

The circular economy is a system where, ideally, nothing becomes waste. Instead of a line (take, make, dispose), the model is a circle (take, make, recycle). In a circular economy, all the resources needed to make engineered materials would be recovered from used products. It looks like this:

Recover resources from recycled products,

Use those resources to make engineered materials,

Use those materials to make products,

Find secondary markets for used products that are still in good condition,

When products wear out, recycle them to recover the resources and continue the cycle.

In reality, our economy is not 100% linear. We don’t throw everything into landfills. Recycling exists, but it is more limited than many people realize.

For metals and glass, recycling is especially efficient. These materials can be melted and recycled over and over, with no loss in quality. But the real recycling rates for metals and glass are far lower than they ought to be. Aluminum is the most highly recycled metal, with a recycling rate of 70-75%. Recycling rates for plastics, which were already dismal, have fallen further in recent years.

According to the 2021 Circularity Gap Report, our global economy is less than 9% circular. Over 90% of all materials produced are not recycled back into the system but go to waste. Increasing circularity is both possible and necessary. In The Netherlands, the circularity rate is around 25%, and they recognize they must keep improving.

Why does the circular economy matter? The brief answer is because it is related to climate change. Moving to a circular economy would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It would be enough to keep the global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius.

If it were easy to reverse the trends in consumption that have been accelerating throughout my lifetime (50-plus years), we would have already done so. Still, solutions exist, and it is up to everyone to promote them.

Considering just consumer electronics, returning to a world without computers and mobile phones is not realistic. Nor is it desirable, as the technology does come with benefits to society. We can, however, keep our devices longer before discarding them. We can choose to buy from companies that use recycled materials in their products. And we can increase e-waste recycling.

It is possible to recover dozens of metals from electronics through e-waste recycling. These metals then go into new devices. In 2017, Apple voiced the audacious goal of producing phones and laptops with no mined metals. It is possible, but only with a ready supply of recycled metals at a price that the manufacturers are willing to pay.

How can we grow the supply? By making sending used electronics to e-waste a common practice. Global e-waste recycling rates are around 20%.

I admit I am part of the problem. In my efforts to be part of the solution, I commit to collecting all the old laptops and phones in my house and dropping them off for e-waste recycling. I invite you to do the same.