Take, for example, the fashion industry. Each year, millions of tons of raw materials are harvested from the earth. We use massive amounts of fossil fuels to power machines to manufacture those materials into clothing and then to ship them around to stores across the planet, which fills the atmosphere with greenhouse gas emissions. As if that weren’t bad enough, after wearing these clothes, we decide at some point (one year, three years, ten years), to throw them away and three-quarters then end up in a landfill. (See Figure 2-1.)
FIGURE 2-1: The typical approach to making clothing is the linear model.
Because we’ve been doing it this way for so long, we fail to see the opportunities to improve this linear process. Imagine, instead, that we took the approach outlined in Table 2-1.
Seen in this light, the linear approach isn’t that great, is it? A circular-economy approach seeks to take those linear approaches to materials, energy, and reuse and bend them into a more circular approach — an approach that mimics what happens regularly in nature.
TABLE 2-1 Prescription for the Future
| Replace This | With This |
|---|---|
| Extracting natural resources | Using recycled or bio-based materials |
| Packaging in single-use plastic | Packaging in reusable packaging or none at all |
| Burning fossil fuels for energy | Using clean, renewable energy |
| Shipping products around the planet | Creating local networks of manufacturing |
| Making products that become outdated | Designing durable products that can be adapted or updated |
| Tossing products into a landfill | Designing products to be repairable, biodegradable, or recyclable |
In this chapter, we explore how this linear approach isn’t exactly working for the planet and why we humans need to drastically change how we produce our food, products, packaging, and everything else in order to be more circular — like all the other living things in nature.
We’re Taking the Wrong Stuff
The linear take-make-waste approach to work depends on the use of a lot of materials. Companies harvest and extract raw materials and use them to produce a product, which they then sell to consumers. Eventually, the consumer discards the product when it’s no longer of use to them. In 2020, more than 90 billion tons of raw materials were put into the linear system of production. The sheer scale of all this wasteful manufacturing activity is overwhelming.
Unfortunately, humans are harvesting materials that are limited in supply and difficult and expensive to extract — and the materials aren’t designed to be replenished. When those products end up in the landfill, they don’t magically restore the original raw materials. As a result, materials are getting increasingly more difficult (where we can even find a sufficient supply) to extract safely and affordably, harvest a useful supply, and ensure quality.
For example, as the supplies of easily accessible oil and natural gas have run out, it’s become harder and harder to find plentiful sources of those resources. Energy companies have had to drill deeper and go further offshore, and employ riskier techniques, such as fracking, to scrape up the last bits. As a result, the oil and gas they now extract is less pure, of lower quality, and more expensive to find.
The linear economy depends on the wrong assumptions: an endless supply of cheap, abundant energy and materials. Now that those things are no longer true, companies are starting to question their original assumptions and to transform from a linear economy to a circular one.
PLASTIC: BY THE NUMBERS
No other material is as troublesome as plastic. A whopping 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic was produced in the past century, and half of that was designed to be used only once. Let’s look at the impact of all that plastic:
Ninety-one percent of plastic isn’t recycled, and 79 percent is sitting in landfills.
Most of the products discarded in curbside recycling bins end up not being recycled because of food contamination.
The rapid increase in plastics manufacturing has doubled roughly every 15 years.
Plastics production has outpaced nearly every other human-made material.
Plastic takes more than 400 years to degrade, so most of it still exists.
By 2050, if trends continue, landfills will hold 12 billion metric tons of plastic. That amount is 35,000 times as heavy as the Empire State Building.
Half of all plastic becomes trash in less than a year, whereas half of all steel remains in use for decades.
One million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute.
Humans produce about 330 million tons of plastic waste every year.
The amount of plastic produced annually is nearly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population.
By 2050, the plastics industry could account for 20 percent of the world’s total oil consumption.
Nine million tons of plastic end up in the world’s oceans every year.
If current trends continue, the oceans could contain more plastic than fish by 2050.
We’re not importing this stuff from space
Everything you’ve ever bought, everything you’ve ever owned, everything you’ve ever touched, is still here. It’s right here sitting on Planet Earth. If you don’t know where it is, that’s probably because you threw it away. But where is “away”?
“Away” is an imaginary place — or so we humans tell