Wylder Earth

As Project Manager of Arca (2021-2023), I led a team to deliver circular economy training programmes to local businesses in Cornwall, a peninsula in the Southwest of England.

The circular economy is a practical solution to the global grand challenges of the 21st Century: climate change, biodiversity loss and resource scarcity. Traditional business models focus on taking raw materials from the Earth, making a product, and eventually throwing that product away as waste. This linear model is known as the ‘take-make-waste’ system. The circular economy offers a fresh approach that seeks to eliminate waste, circulate products, regenerate nature and deliver social justice.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has designed the butterfly diagram – a visual tool which demonstrates how the circular economy works in practice. It illustrates how materials flow in two different cycles – the biological and technical. The biological cycle consists of biodegradable materials. The technical cycle consists of non-biodegradable materials, such as, plastics and metals which can be kept cycling through reuse, remanufacture or recycling.

A key point – often missed in discussions of the circular economy – is the imperative to keep products and materials cycling at their highest value. This means recycling is a last resort – maintenance and creating a sharing economy in which products have multiple users (either consecutively or concurrently) is the primary goal. The smallest loop (maintain, prolong, share) on the technical cycle of the butterfly diagram is the most desirable. The largest loop (recycling) is the least desirable.

We’re already really good at implementing the circular economy in some areas, typically for high value items. Think about bikes, cars, houses. We don’t throw away our bike or car when it gets a puncture. We fix it. We don’t recycle our house, brick by brick, when we find a small leak in the roof. In both cases, we maintain and repair the item. Redistributing and reusing are common in both cases. Bikes get passed down to younger siblings. There is a thriving second hand car market. And when you’re done living in your home, you don’t throw it away and buy a new one, you sell it on. Cars and houses are remanufactured – think scrap yards and architectural salvage – whole items are broken up to be repurposed, used in new ways to make new products. Recycling is the very last resort but still common – copper pipes might be sold to a scrap metal merchant.

Overall, however, the consumer culture is deeply embedded in our economy in a way that it wasn’t fifty years ago, when families had less disposable income and notions of thrift and ‘make do and mend’ were more prominent. Notions of shopping as a recreational, rather than functional activity have crept into our culture and are reflected in everyday phrases, such as, ‘retail therapy’ and ‘shop till you drop’.

Conversely, there are many examples of the circular economy as consumers and businesses react against the throw-away culture. Rental, sharing or ‘product as a service’ models are becoming more common. Rent the Runway enables shoppers to rent (rather than buy) designer clothing that might otherwise be unaffordable and inaccessible. Library of Things enable you to borrow rather than buy a wide range of household items. Platforms like Vinted facilitate the selling of second hand clothes.

Cornwall, a peninsula in the Southwest of the England, is an excellent case study for the circular economy in action. Find out more about the circular economy in Cornwall.