Why 100% Circular Right Away is Not Feasible

The circular economy is gaining popularity but falling short on action. That’s the headline message of the Circle Economy Foundation’s 2024 Circularity Gap Report – a new piece of research aimed at helping to accelerate change.

According to the report, the circular economy has reached ‘megatrend’ status, with the volume of discussions, debates and articles on the concept almost tripling over the past five years.

At the same time, however, global circularity is still in decline, with the share of secondary materials consumed by the global economy decreasing from 9.1% in 2018 to 7.2% in 2023. This represents a 21% drop over five years.

However, this doesn’t mean that we’re all doomed. According to the Foundation, a roadmap for successful transition already exists and just needs to be followed. This will inevitably involve some far-reaching and large-scale legal, fiscal, and social policy developments, which will take time. It certainly won’t happen overnight.

Yet, much of the conversation around circularity focuses on the environmental and economic utopia of a 100% circular model rather than the decades-long and vastly expensive journey required to get there or the changes that can and should be made now.

More focus must be placed on ‘bending the line’ – the journey to transition from a linear economy to a circular one. Advetec has long championed this concept, which we detailed in our Bending the Line White Paper.

We’re trying to educate the waste sector about the improvements we can make today. This will help move us away from a linear economy, where we ‘take, make, and waste’, towards a more circular one, where waste will eventually be eradicated.

We can’t rely on recycling alone

Whilst recycling is a cornerstone of circular economy thinking, it isn’t a panacea for the world’s waste problems. There are limits to what is possible right now regarding how many materials can be recovered and recycled. Non-recyclable waste still exists, even in the most technologically advanced nations. The waste industry needs time and significant investment to advance far enough to recycle all materials.

One of the most prevalent sources of non-recyclable waste is mixed residual waste (MRW), which is unsuitable for recycling due to organic matter, such as a cardboard sandwich wrapper containing crusts. This waste typically goes to landfill or for incineration.

To help minimise this environmentally damaging linear outcome, it’s vital that we stop viewing MRW as something at the end of its useful life and instead recognise it as an alternative fuel source.

What we can do to make a difference now

MRW can create alternative fuels such as SRF, a high-yield energy source and fossil fuel alternative capable of reducing the world’s carbon outputs.

Turning non-recyclable waste into alternative fuels diverts 100% of it from landfill or low-level incineration and helps energy-intensive industries decarbonise. It can, for instance, allow the cement industry to halve its fuel-associated carbon footprint and benefit the circular economy virtually overnight. Once this waste stream has been transformed into SRF, it can also be turned into hydrogen to power cars and trucks, provide fuel for the aviation sector or be used in gasification. Crucially, it can also be sent for further recycling.

The technology is already here

Helpfully, the advanced technology needed to turn non-recyclable waste into alternative fuels is already accessible to waste-handling firms and producers of all sizes.

Advetec’s biotechnology uses blends of bacteria—or bio-stimulants—to digest unrecyclable waste, stabilising, reducing, and repurposing it into Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF). For every two tonnes of unrecyclable waste that goes through the XO machine, 1.2 tonnes of CO2 are saved, and the floc left can be used as a fossil fuel replacement product.

This cost-effective biotechnology can be placed on-site at waste handling facilities and configured to fit within existing operations without requiring significant capex or vast amounts of time to make it happen. This means that it offers smaller waste handlers access to an SRF offtake route that was previously unavailable. It’s also a localised solution that reduces mileage, takes collection lorries off the road, and throws a lifeline to remote communities where waste infrastructure is often lacking.

An interim solution while the planet shifts

In the meantime, the waste sector has an opportunity to innovate and embrace technologies with the power to deliver meaningful change.

When you consider that close to 20 million tonnes of post-consumer plastic waste (approx. 65%) goes to landfill or for low-level incineration each year across Europe because of the presence of organic matter, it’s clear to see the difference that repurposing this waste stream into a fossil fuel alternative could make.

Focusing on unrecyclable waste can extract more value from it and bend that all-important line towards more circular behaviours.

To learn how our biotechnology can open up new offtake routes for your waste business, read our whitepaper “Bending the Line: SRF and the Path to a Circular Economy” here.