Corporations will implement circularity through recycling alone – that worsens sustainability

A circular economy is an economic system aimed at minimising waste and making the most of resources. In a circular system, resources, waste, emissions, and energy leakage are lowered by reducing consumption and production. It’s about long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and eventually, recycling. This approach is in contrast to what we have now, which is a ‘take, make, dispose’ model of production. So far so good!

Yet, like anything, corporations only pick out the parts which suit them. That is, by focusing on closing the circle, with an emphasis on recycling.

Basically, corporations are putting all the responsibility on us. If the planet is getting dirtier, it’s not their fault, it’s ours. Because we’re all not recycling enough. They are also betting against the odds that a technological fix will bail us out of the perpetually polluting and deadly path we’re now on. They deliberately forget the other part of the equation: slowing the consumption and production of materials, resources and energy all together and implementing long-term waste prevention solutions which would design out the waste altogether.

It is more profitable for them to tell us that technology will fix it all, so we can continue business as usual, rather than tackling the root cause of the problem: consumerism and overconsumption.

You may say, “Well, something is better than nothing.”

Well, yes, but the circular economy can backfire

Recycling is far from 100% efficient and many resources, like energy, simply can’t be recycled. Relying solely on recycling can create an efficiency paradox; leading us to an increase in product demand, and thus, making more stuff and extracting more resources to make that stuff. In other words, recycling alone is a grand distraction from the real solution: preventing pollution at the source.

Even if all resources and materials were recycled and the recycling process was 100% efficient, the amount of used resources and material that can be recycled will always be smaller than the stuff needed for growth. To make up the difference we end up having to drill, burn and bulldoze our way through nature.