THE END OF TRASH - CIRCULAR ECONOMY SOLUTIONS

The world's population is booming and at the same time draining out the Earth’s natural resources at an alarming rate. We take resources from the planet to make products and when we no longer want them, throw them away. Take-make-waste—this is the linear economy. A system adopted from the First Industrial Revolution that allowed us to have access to an extraordinary number of products and to a comfort unimaginable to previous generations.

In 2018, around two-thirds of the material we scratched from the planet slipped off of our hands. Waste and pollution are not accidents, but the consequences of decisions taken at the design stage, where around 80% of environmental impacts are determined. Soon the world will approach a tipping point where it will lose the capacity to sustain itself. The linear economy has to change. We must transform all the elements of the take- make-waste system: how we manage resources, how we make and use products, and what we do with the materials afterward.

The so-called Circular Economy is the emerging solution to transition to a better future, sustainability with finance at its core. It’s a new way to design, make, and use things within planetary boundaries. By changing our mindset to view waste as a resource, we can avoid creating trash in the first place. Shifting to a circular economic system involves everyone and everything: businesses, governments, and individuals; our cities, our products, and our jobs. By designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems, we can reinvent everything.

It is ever more evident that our survival is strictly linked to finding solutions that will minimize our impact on Earth and allow us to maintain our quality of life, our jobs, and our societal structure. We need to use our knowledge to find solutions inspired by the natural circle of life because in nature there’s no concept of waste, everything feeds something else.