Our Current System Is

Since the industrial revolution, we have been able to manufacture on a mass scale. The technological revolution we are currently experiencing is rapidly progressing, giving many people access to a vast range of affordable products, on a global scale. These products have brought many of us levels of material comfort unimaginable to previous generations (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2020). The disregard for sustainable resource use in the design phase has finally caught up with us.

Our current model of consumption is linear, resources are extracted from the environment being manufactured into goods which are discarded as waste, with often all too short lifespans. Take, Make, Use, Discard.

There is growing public awareness of the environmental damage that this system perpetuates. From the destruction of our rainforests to plastics in our oceans and the exponential rise of carbon emissions leading to climate change.

We produce Mountains of rubbish

With a massive 45.4 million tonnes of waste being dumped in landfill each year, thats enough to fill over 54,000 Olympic swimming pools. England’s landfill sites will burst their banks in as little as four years if nothing is done to stem the flow of waste being sent there. (TFR group, 2020)

The Future is circular.

The Circular Economy is a new way of thinking where products, and the systems that produce & deliver them to us, are designed to remove the end of life process. Where the use of resources is closed loop, meaning end of life products and system waste is recycled back into goods. Minimising the negative impacts of our consumption by reducing the demand on resources and eliminating the environmental pollution cause by waste. Products should be designed to be reused as many times as possible, however recycling still plays a key role for many industries where reuse is not an option.

We must Close the loop

We must act now to combat the effects on our environment caused by the linear consumption model. Landfill and incineration of plastic bottles produces approximately 233,000 tonnes of CO2e emissions a year. Every day in the UK, roughly 15 million plastic bottles are landfilled or incinerated. Shockingly, around 700,000 plastic bottles are littered every day in the UK, despite the wide availability of plastic bottle recycling.

the benefits of going circular

These are just some of the benefits from moving towards a circular economy. Shifting our current system will not be easy. It requires cooperation from everyone and everything: businesses, governments, and individuals; our cities, our products, and our jobs (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2017).

Our Current System Is

We produce Mountains of rubbish

The Future is circular.

We must Close the loop

the benefits of going circular

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