Zero Waste and Circular Economy

The circular economy and the zero-waste movement have the same idea, that trash must be engineered out of our current systems (or loop) in order to cease its negative effects, while also recovering valuable resources and ensuring that polluting substances are kept out of the environment.

However, this involves concentrating on a universally accepted hierarchy that goes beyond the already well-known three Rs for the zero-waste idea. The Zero Waste International Alliance now describes this structure as follows:

·??????To reduce waste, and redesign goods, and materials.

·??????Reduce the use of new materials and products.

·??????Before throwing things away, try to reuse them.

·??????Reduce waste by recycling and composting products and materials.

·??????Recover materials from non-recyclable items.

·??????Utilize the best strategy feasible from above to manage residuals.

·??????Unacceptable product and material landfilling and incineration.

Contrarily, the circular economy adopts a more methodical approach to consumption in order to create closed-loop systems that support the circularity of resources in order to eliminate waste and pollution, maintain goods and materials in use for their entire useful lives, and renew natural systems.

There is undoubtedly a lot of overlap between the two ideas, and the zero-waste hierarchy itself serves as a circular manual for garbage disposal. Both ideas also take a cradle-to-cradle approach (as opposed to a cradle-to-grave one), going beyond simply dealing with garbage at the point of disposal and putting more emphasis on managing waste generation at the point of manufacture.

Circular economy ideas, however, have had a significant impact on zero-waste thinking for some time, as they predate the zero-waste movement by a few decades. Today, it is reasonable to say that the zero-waste movement is a subset of circular thinking, particularly directed at individuals and organizations looking to cut waste, whereas the circular economy refers to the entirety of our current consumption model.