The Circular Economy:
Where We Are and Where We Will Be in Five Years
T
he world’s economic demands keep increasing year after year, forcing us to use our resources at an alarming rate and produce large amounts of waste. Though such a system can still function, it’s far from sustainable. In fact, staying on this path will lead us to an ecological disaster of an unprecedented scale, one that will have dire consequences for the entire planet. So, is there a way to avoid this catastrophe? Well, experts believe the solution might be the circular economy. For that reason, they’ve already started implementing it or advocating for its implementation.
What Is the Circular Economy? To fully understand the circular economy, we need to take a look at its opposite, which is prevalent today — the linear economy. The linear economy favors short-life disposable products that you use several times and then discard. Those products then 64 europeanbusinessmagazine.com
end up in a landfill, where they sit decomposing for years. Ultimately, the linear economy presupposes that the planet has infinite resources and space for waste storage. But, of course, we know that’s not true. That’s exactly why the circular economy was invented — as a more sustainable alternative to the linear one. In the circular economy, the emphasis is on repairing, reusing, and recycling a product as long as possible. That way, the need for resources and the production of waste becomes drastically lower. For the circular economy to work, two conditions have to be met. First, we need to redesign existing products so that they can be easily repaired and reused. This step is crucial, as many items we buy nowadays are short-life and single-use. The second condition is even more difficult, though. Namely, we have to change people’s mindsets and attitudes about products and waste. Most
of us think nothing of buying an item, using it for a while, and then discarding it for a new one. But the circular economy requires far more mindfulness and ecological awareness, which isn’t easy to achieve.
The Circular Economy in 2021 The circular economy concept is fairly new, but not so much that its implementation hasn’t started. Actually, the idea has gained some traction all across the globe, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, it became obvious that our linear economy isn’t nearly as resilient as we thought. Another similar disaster, and the world probably won’t be able to handle it if nothing changes. And what sort of a disaster is most likely to happen in the next fifty years? Without a doubt, an ecological one. That’s why several governments around the world have decided to put serious plans into action, hoping to bring us closer to circularity.
