Читать книгу Circular Economy For Dummies - Eric Corey Freed - Страница 23

IN THIS CHAPTER

Rejecting waste as a necessary output of a global economy

Rethinking material lifecycles as tool to eliminate waste

Redesigning everything to be circular

We humans are all now finding ourselves in a troubling-yet-exciting time of human existence. We’re more capable and smarter than ever, yet we still maintain and perpetuate an issue unique to the human race: waste. Waste doesn’t exist within the natural world; there, every output of a system acts as an input for another. Leaf litter isn’t litter at all, but a source of food for insects and eventually a food source for the tree to grow leaves again next year. The carbon dioxide emitted through animal respiration is harvested by vegetation and replaced with the oxygen required to future support animal respiration. Material lifecycles within nature are circular, not linear. Every output of one systems serves as an input for another.

Though waste doesn’t exist within the natural world, it most certainly — at an extremely accelerated rate — exists within the human world. Though populations and demand for resources continue to surge and the rate at which materials and products are purchased and disposed of increases, so will the creation of waste. To avoid this situation, the modern management of material lifecycles must transition from a linear model (one based on the take-make-waste philosophy) to a circular model (one based on designing out waste, keeping materials in use for as long as possible, and regenerating natural ecosystems). To make this transition, those in charge of the global economy will need to reject waste as a necessary component of that economy, rethink how material lifecycles can be managed to maximize product resiliency and recyclability, and redesign how the human race manages its resources in the future.

In this chapter, we outline the main areas of focus that this book covers and provide some resources for you to immediately get acquainted with the thoughts and concepts behind the circular economy.