The circular economy means designing things so there is minimum waste – during manufacturing, use, and then at the end of of the item’s life. It firstly aims to increase the life of all products – including packaging – if possible, to prevent them becoming waste which needlessly uses Earth’s resources and pollutes the environment. In this blog we will break down the circular economy, and particularly focus on circular packaging, especially in the skincare and cosmetics industries.
What is the Concept of the Circular Economy?
The circular economy is the opposite of the linear economy.
Wow, what an opening line. Let’s break that down into some real-life words…
The linear economy is what usually happens at the moment – where raw materials are taken from the earth, used to create something, and then eventually chucked out as waste. For example, we extract crude oil from underground reservoirs, use it to make some plastic packaging, and then the end user throws that packaging in the general waste bin, and it ends up in a great big landfill heap. The whole concept of the circular economy is to prevent this waste from being produced.
To do this, we need to invest in a lot of research and development, so that products are originally made with the idea of long lifetimes, reuse, and recycling, in mind. There’s also a huge need for a large transition from non-renewable energy to renewable energy sources.
What are the two main cycles of the circular economy?
The circular economy involves two main material cycles: the technical cycle and the biological cycle (groan… more ‘fluffy’ words). The technical cycle involves products that are not biodegradable, such as metals and plastics, and the biological cycle involves products that are biodegradable, like food or wood. Dive in further using the web link…