THE CIRCLE ECONOMY is POSSIBLE; What means Circle Economy?
It is an international movement that has a new vision for our future and hopefully will change the way we do things now: in term of energy, waste and recycling. This cultural change is needed now. We have less than a decade.
Every year we transform around 93 million tons of raw material into products. Less than 25 % have long duration like buildings and infrastructures and less than 10% returns actually into the economy.
The Circle economy precisely is looking to reduce these massive waste, by reducing, re-using, recycling, or by initiatives like renting instead of buying…
No intentions in circle economy of stopping growth but growing without generating waste, just by doing things differently: returning to nature part of what we take and creating harmony with Nature.
We know this is possible, we just need the will of governors, industries and citizens to make this change happen.
TALKING ABOUT ENERGY
We can find many other resources of energy, we know we can and we should transit from fossil energy to clean ones, like geothermal Energy. A good example is ICELAND, who has already one of the third biggest geothermal plants in the world. The energy is mainly generated by the Magma laying under the lava fields. I had the pleasure to enjoy the Blue Lagoon in Iceland (it is an Icelandic tourist attraction) turquoise blue water pond with boiling hot water sourced by only geothermal water but the most astonishing is that it turns into a tourist attraction after having already produced electricity for the whole region.
This is just an example of many others that can change our way of producing clean ENERGY in our planet. Let´s see how the textil industry does.
Our textil industry has still a long way to go. Currently only 1% of the textile waste is recycled to produce new clothing. I hope EU would demand soon a minimum of recyclable fibre to manufacturers, because polyester and weaved cotton can’t be recycled today.
One of the greatest ideas I have seen is also rental clothing, you can mostly find those shops, who rent for special occasions. I have personally used these rental shops instead of buying a dress that I would probably use once or twice in my life. This kind of sustainable business is covering nowadays only a 0,001 % of the market. A long way to go…
FOOD WASTE
The numbers shows that a third of the food produced worldwide is completely wasted, it represents a loss of a billion dollars every year. There is a lot still to do in this sector.
There was a time when agriculture and farming were following circular economy, the industrial livestock broke that circle. Today there is many interesting initiatives around the world to deal with surplus and bio waste. Surely we know how to create and produce all kind of materials with technical nutrients and they can be recycled “ad infinitum”, the future will transit in a biological path, because is the only material (bio derivates) that the planet can digest.
Lately many growing techniques: underwater, vertical farming cam save 95% of the volume and space needed in normal farming. No use of pesticides are necessary with these new way of city farming, production wise it is a 390% more performance.
Circular economy is a dream for many engineers and our sturdy ambition for those who want a better world in a sustainable society. The numbers today are showing us that carbon emissions are growing and the use of our natural resources will double in 2050. Would be possible a shift of 160C in the next decade?
The scientific world is asking for a cultural and rapid change; many of us are ready but with the cast of leaders today and even the index indicating red numbers we will have to wait probably for the next generation to see it. I want to be optimistic, maybe this world pandemic of corona virus makes our leaders and enterprises realise how vulnerable humanity is. We should not overlook Nature´s power, we are in this planet just passing through…
Christine Hart
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