The Circular Economy: Destruction of the Take-Make-Dispose Consumer Mentality

Increasingly governments and businesses are embracing the idea of a ‘circular economy‘.  The idea is that by recycling materials and energy from discarded products, we can generate generations of  goods and products.  It’s the idea of eliminating wastes and landfill.  The concept was widely discussed and embraced by business and world leaders at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos.  Unfortunately, the concept may draw ire from some businesses that are happy with the status quo.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) described the model as follows: “the Circular Economy is a new economic model, which replaces today’s ‘take-make-dispose‘ economy with one that is restorative by design and in which stocks and flows of resources are rebuilt as opposed to degraded/disposed.  This results in lower and less volatile costs, and holds huge potential for innovation and job creation. Ultimately, the circular economy can help to decouple economic growth from resource consumption – truly a step-change.”

Richard Samans, managing director at WEF, wrote in a piece for USAToday gives the iPhone4 as an example of society’s current waste.  Each of these smartphones has about $100 worth of materials in them than can be reused, but currently only about 20 percent of the material is being recycled, resulting in $100 billion worth of materials being discarded and buried to landfill in just one or two years.

The ideas in the concept of the circular economy aren’t new.  Some of the same ideas could be found in the 2002 book Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, for example.  “Human beings don’t have a pollution problem; they have a design problem. If humans were to devise products, tools, furniture, homes, factories, and cities more intelligently from the start, they wouldn’t even need to think in terms of waste, contamination, or scarcity … Good design would allow for abundance, endless reuse, and pleasure.”

Supporters of the Circular Economy, like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, have found that the circular economy methodology could generate $1 trillion in savings by 2025 and create 100,000 new jobs within five years.

Dominic Waughray, senior director of WEF, warns that there are risks that will come unless a circular economy is globally adopted. As quoted in the Guardian, Waughray said that “experts have calculated that without a rethink of how we use materials in our linear ‘take-make-dispose’ economy, elements such as gold, silver, indium, iridium, tungsten and many others vital for industry could be depleted within five to fifty years.  If we remain in our business as usual mode, price volatility will continue to surge, alongside the probable inflation of key commodities. Business leaders are in search of a better hedge to avoid these risks, and are moving towards an industrial model that decouples revenues from material input: the circular economy.”