Circular washing increases consumption

What's more, by emphasizing reuse and recycling—rather than reducing production—the circular economy runs the risk of becoming a red herring, enabling companies to increase their environmental impact while appearing greener to the public. The circular economy is essentially riding on decades of public conditioning that has us convinced that reuse and recycling are always good for the planet, but that's not the case. "We've tried [reuse and recycling] over and over again, and it just hasn't worked," says Roland Geyer, a professor in industrial ecology and pollution prevention at the University of California at Santa Barbara and a critic of the circular economy.

The economics and difficulty of recycling complex consumer goods like electronics, cars, and furniture mean that wide-scale refurbishment and recycling of most products remain elusive. But even if industry were to overcome these barriers and finally scale up recycling, virgin-resource consumption still might not decrease. This is partly because recycling itself requires water, energy, and chemicals. It is far from a zero-impact process. In the case of recycling textiles, energy is needed to spin old fibers into new material, then chemicals are required to dye and finish that material into garments, and more energy is needed to ship them to retail stores. A 2018 Quantis report on the fashion industry found that scaling up to clothing made from 34 percent recycled materials would only cut carbon emissions across the industry by a mere 5 percent.

In fact, designing products so they're made to be recycled and reused could drive up overall consumption of virgin resources. In a 2017 paper, Geyer and environmental science and management expert Trevor Zink explain how the circular economy could be initiating a rebound effect. Besides creating new and separate markets for cheap secondhand products that don't replace new products, it could dramatically increase the supply of recycled materials. This would put them in competition with virgin materials, driving the price of both down and the consumption of both up.

Steel, for example, is the most widely recycled material, and yet consumption of primary steel has doubled in the past 20 years. Because the total consumption of resources is growing by about 3 percent every year, it's difficult to make every new thing out of old things, which means recycled material will always be in competition with virgin material. "The whole point, the only point, of reusing and recycling is so we make less new stuff," says Geyer. "And that's just not happening."