Closing the Loop on Waste: Considering a Circular Economy

After Refuse and Rethink is Reuse, like this old tire planter

Episode Transcript

KIMBERLY

Welcome to this episode of Sustainable Planet. I'm political scientist Kimberly Weir and my co -host is Jordan Dye, a guy who knows an awful lot about sustainability issues. Our last episode on planned obsolescence and the right to repair prompted us to look into the prospects for a circular economy. Living in a world of thoughtfully produced goods with practically no waste is not a pipe dream, though it would require a system overhaul. So Jordan, do you know just how many R's there are in a circular economy?

JORDEN

Well, I do now, but I've got to admit, maybe it's because of the amazing, amazing propaganda of the 90s, but I've been stuck on reduced reuse recycle. So getting to dig into some of the broader aspects that make up a circular economy has been interesting.

KIMBERLY

So when we talk about circular economy, really, the objective here is to design products in such a way that there's actually very little that's discarded from packaging and products would be reusable and so forth. So that actually foregoes. recycle for the most part in this right so that gets us away from like we yes reduce is a great one but but the need to recycle if we just some package can just be eliminated which would make a huge difference right there and we would have to worry about that and so there should be some sort of way with circular economy is to try to require producers to redesign production and consumption and supply chains in order to minimize resource use from the beginning and improve the environmental state of relationship, the impact that they're having, right? And to maximize value creation out of what resources they actually use.

JORDEN

I think that's one of the most interesting things for me is actually a flip. Like in our current model, we put all of the, you know, onus and fixing of the problem. I'm using air quotes for the listeners. at the end of the system right like recycling the material so it can go back in and it's placed on consumers and you know municipalities at the end it's like outside of the the actual like production of it and this flips it And I think that's the big thing that you said, it's actually redesigning the product itself so that there's far less to recycle and less needed to be recycled at the very end. I think in our current model, recycling is a giant aspect that is needed to kind of fix the problems upstream. In an actual circular economy, that recycling should be a much smaller piece of it because you've fixed the upstream. Exactly.

KIMBERLY

And if we had a circular economy, just as it is now, it's projected to generate $4 .5 trillion in value by 2030. And that would be using 32 % fewer resources and create more jobs. And the thing is, though, is that that's without a whole lot of changes. Imagine what would be possible if we actually moved more companies in more of a direction. And the World Economic Forum actually details a circular economy. is encompassing a flow from raw materials to design to production and remanufacturing, using those things that are already there, to distribution, to consumption, for use, reuse and repair, to collection and then recycling, and then revisiting that circle with that stuff that we are using. So there's very little new inputs going into this circle.

JORDEN

I think and it's the really cool thing about that is that that four point five trillion in value by 2030 is with the current system we have in a little bit of circular economy aspects that we're already seeing. And to your point, it's not it's not widespread. And we're going to go over some great examples today. But like right away, I think people will see that it's still pretty limited. So to your point, you can only imagine how much extra it would add, because, again. Anything that is a waste that requires it to be disposed and taken care of is just a cost. Right. And you require a new version input at the beginning. So it's cost on both sides. So there is an incentive in some ways. I think a lot of times it's overruled by the system incentives. Right. But I can definitely see it growing. And I think we're going to have to probably link to a good circular economy video so people can see that loop and really understand. How how much of a paradigm shift it is and really gets to the cool aspect here is that it's not just it's sustainability for everyone, if you think about it, because every company needs to be thinking about this. And I think that's one of the cool things.

KIMBERLY

And the problem is, is that that we're trying to undo what's already been done, as you pointed out, right? It's that if we had started out this way with the intention of actually reusing and bringing back as much. that already was put into the system, that would make a huge difference. But we started out with waste being the end expectation. And so because of that, I mean, probably the e -waste industry is the one that has made the most progress as a whole. The e -waste industry is kind of weird just to say that because it's an industry that grew up to try to basically harvest the recyclable metals and parts that were in electronics in the first place. And as more and more people were going through, burning through far more electronics far more quickly. Like we realized, okay, some ingenious people, some entrepreneurial people got together with the ingenious people and said, hey, let's harvest some of these materials. And a lot of them started out in really awful conditions and places today. This still happens where we see just dump sites where people in developing countries basically scavenge for whatever parts they can to sell back these metals and so forth that are of value. What we need to do is move towards a regenerative economy, which is synonymous with circular economy, is different from a closed loop economy, which is often used interchangeably with these terms. But that's just a component because when we talk about circular economy, it's really a holistic circular system. Closing the loop is more focused on harvesting the waste materials like with e -waste. and diverting them from landfills. And so that's where the reduced consumption and reuse and repair and so forth really need to come in to try to move on, move us just beyond like, I mean, I shouldn't even say move us beyond because the amount of recycling that's actually happening is just such a paucity of overall numbers to begin with. So we need to do that also, but.

JORDEN

Well, no, it's a it's double track, right? We need to be reducing our overall use of resources while at the same time actually ramping up the amount of waste resources that are recycled. So at the same time, you're reducing that waste number and and increasing the amount that's recycled. I think the closed loop economy, a good way to think about it is it's that final it's really just the final step in the in a closed, sorry, in a circular economy. Going back to like recycling and landfill is your last step. end of life the closed loop economy is how do you get that back up into it right and another term zero waste right that's often used is about eliminating that landfill percentage but to your point it it's really it should be the smallest thing and i think it's the thing we talk about when we think about because of our current system the analogy i often use when i'm kind of talking about switching out sustainable systems is like you're changing the hull of a boat from a wood ship to a metal ship while you're sailing across the ocean. That's the challenge that we're dealing with. So you got to do it like really, really slowly in some ways, you know, because you disruption and, but also. it's about focusing i think on some of the base things right like the actual like support pillar you know using my analogy of a ship right that's interior hull structure rather than slapping on the kind of the outside and so that's why like here it's easier to point at the recycling but we really need to be pushing for the actual product design both to be designed to be recycled easier but also be designed to last longer to use less materials on its input right well and that's because because the

KIMBERLY

and that's because because the Where waste got dumped in the first place was, well, municipalities will deal with this. Oh, consumers, now you're the ones. And it was the corporations who led the charge to get consumers to be the ones who were responsible for recycling. And so they never really had to be accountable for what happened once the product left their shelves, what happened to it. And it was interesting that you said pillars, because in fact, there are seven pillars of the circular economy. And based on the three main principles of equity, resilience, and transparency. So when we talk about materials, that's something that we want to use. and reuse and reuse these materials as often and as long as possible, really to help cut back goes along with energy. And that's your area. So I can let you talk about renewables. We could spend, you know, we could just run this much time.

JORDEN

time.

KIMBERLY

And then, and then water, right. Also extract, we're extracting these resources at an unrenewable rate. That's the thing. We are so far borrowed into the future when it comes to all of our, all of our raw materials and natural resources that we really need to take a step back and protect the biodiversity that's being deprived, diminished and being wiped out in the process. And also just the impact definitely that it has on people and society and culture and governance and health and wellbeing, all of these things. And when we talk about. anything that has to do with the economy. Generally, it's just about, well, what's the GDP?

JORDEN

No, I think so. Two things really struck me as I was looking at the seven pillars there. One, just think that anybody, it's a growing field and it's used more and more, but like there's a... I don't know, an idyllic version of my future that I like to imagine sometimes when ecological economics are actually just fully integrated in with mainstream economics. That is economics.

KIMBERLY

economics. That is economics.

JORDEN

Yeah, because it accounts for the actual economic value from natural systems. And I mean, there's a lot of pushback sometimes on it of, oh, well, even putting it in a dollar amount kind of devalues it in some way. 100 % agree there's intrinsic value to nature. But I do think actually using an ecological economic framework changes how we think about that. Because now it's not just, oh, we put up like a housing development on this wetland. It's like, no, we actually lost $1 .2 billion in economic value over the next 10 years because you took that wetland out. And that, I think, changes people's perceptions of it. The other thing I thought is how many of our episodes have actually touched on areas of this, right? And aspects of building out more broadly a circular economy, you know, from materials in our sand episode to the three part we did on water, which really got into the biodiversity challenges. And I think there's not, it's not hard to look around our current system and see how we're failing across these and how they play out into those society and cultural aspects.

KIMBERLY

For sure. And that was something that the World Bank recognized with its millennium goals was that there was far too much emphasis on what the economic value of something is. How much can a country, how much can the World Bank help a country to develop its economic level? And it was completely neglecting natural capital and the human beings and the role that they could play in their potential. They switched that up, recognizing that and are putting out more of the sort of statistics that you mentioned, where what happens when we get rid of, lose this, whatever, environmental thing. And what we just talked about this in a recent episode, and I'm trying to remember which one it was, where we actually gave the amount of if we, I think it was mangroves, where if the mangroves were conserved, right, with the country of Indonesia. What that was actually worth in a monetary value, because that really helps for people who think that way and governments who are programmed that way, it helps to get people thinking in a different direction.

JORDEN

Well, I think it changes the timescale. I think putting a dollar on it and saying this is how much it worth this year. One of the benefits and why I like it is I think it pulls it into the here and now for people. A lot of times when we're talking about sustainability challenges and issues or even the benefits of it, you're talking on generational timescales. And I think at our best, we want to do that. But at our most status quo, we optimize for short term decisions. And, you know, we can talk about the problems with that. But I think sometimes you just have to accept it. And so being able to say or, you know, another mangroves episode was a great one for showing short term benefits, like, you know, how much carbon it's removing. You can put these into the kind of tangible. Here's how it impacts you this year. And it can get people to care in a different way, I think.

KIMBERLY

Well, I think that's really important for developing countries that don't have a lot of leeway with they need money now and they need to see those numbers like where is this money going to come from? Because they don't have they can't wait. They can't put this off. They're on short term goals. They don't have the long term luxury that global north countries do or at least should. And oftentimes they're trying to put into a pressure cooker type situation where they're where it seems like they don't really have the longer term to be able to address these issues. And so I think that this is why also when it comes to the four Rs or actually there are the more ambitious 10 Rs, when it comes to those things, reduce is really important. But with the 10 Rs, there are two that come before that, which is refuse and rethink. But again, that puts it on the consumer, like refuse to buy this thing, rethink whether or not you need to replace your phone right now.

JORDEN

No, and I actually like to think about it as like an inverted pyramid. And when I think about circular economy is because at the top and the biggest is really the redesign, at least for me. Right. Because I think that flows into the use is the second kind of chunk for me. How is that product used? Is it designed again? So like, is it designed that, you know, a part that breaks can be replaced easily, can be swapped out. So the actual waste is only that small part, not the entire design. the retirement and i kind of think of it just in those three broad categories you should find an r for the use so that it flows which is and i think that's the biggest thing i think that's why we're going to talk about at the top here is actually reducing the materials that end up in that waste stream starts at the very first step when they're when that designer and that company is thinking about a new product and how much material is going to go into it and how it can be used across its life

KIMBERLY

And the pyramid actually fits really nicely as a funnel to that little tiny bit that leaves the circle and goes into completely, utterly non -renewable, reusable waste. Yeah,

JORDEN

yeah, it does.

KIMBERLY

So we have the things that are important, like the repair, refurbish, remanufacture, repurpose. And at the front, you know, of course, the reduce, reuse, recycle, recover. But the recover and recycle are at the end, right? Those are the things, again, like everything else should happen first. Then we recycle and harvest as much as we possibly can to renew, renew, reuse, and recover. See, renew should be in there too, right? And now we've got 11 hours. And then refuse.

JORDEN

Well, and just as recycling should be. It's funny to keep saying, because we're going to say it a lot, that recycling should be a shrinking percentage. But as you noted earlier in the episode, right now it needs to grow as just the actual things that can be recycled should be recycled, and then we should shrink the amount that needs to be. So it's a really funny thing to talk about it like this, because we're not even close, really, to being at that point.

KIMBERLY

Well, and this is because of, as we talked about, sort of how this has grown up over time. We have far too much reliance on the waste stream to deal with packaging because that's always one thing where we oftentimes just talk about the goods and what happens with the goods that we discard, but the packaging first and foremost, which we did a whole episode on disposable packaging. And so that, and then also the discarded goods and reducing the materials that end up in this waste stream means that we need to have governments that mandate product and packaging design that minimize the use and maximize the waste. potential use and basically to design out waste and pollution and that's a big charge no but i think it's one that there could actually like as we talked about in the packaging episode like it's there's i don't know anybody who likes the amount of garbage they get in a in a shipment

JORDEN

but i think it's one that there could actually like as we talked about in the packaging episode like it's there's i don't know anybody who likes the amount of garbage they get in a in a shipment No, not at all. I've never heard anybody open it and be like, I love that I have to throw out four extra boxes and that you sent something four feet by four feet for my like six inch item. I love that. It's not sad, right?

KIMBERLY

Well, but I mean, because, well, there are kind of two things. My immediate response is one, the unboxing that happens now is a whole like video phenomenon on social media. So like, I don't know, Jordan, maybe I'm pretty sure there are some people out there who are thrilled to get, you know, 17 more pieces of whatever. But I think it's not just that. It is even even the most like trying to narrow down the amount of packaging stuff still comes wrapped, like individually wrapped things in plastic with twist ties and styrofoam still and and other cardboard or whatever. And I totally get it because manufacturers want the item to be sent to you and you to receive it in completely perfect shape. And so yes, there are some precautions that need to be taken. But then there are also for me too, I think all of those extra bits that come that I definitely don't need and I will never use. And it's like immediately I'm like feeling bad about what I bought because now I've got extra, I don't know, whatever, or this spare bit. I think of vacuum cleaners for some reason is one. Like, yes, there are some handy attachments, but there are a lot of attachments people don't ever use. And maybe if you had to pay for each extra attachment instead of just having it be included, then people would say, okay.

JORDEN

But like the capitalistic entrepreneur side of me is like, okay, or just only produce 10 % of what you're currently producing of all those extras. Keep them in your warehouse, right? And so now you've reduced 90%. You're not paying for that. That's cost gone. And then just have it so people who want them can send in a request and you can send it out. It was already free before. You're saving money and now you're building brand loyalty. I have an even better idea, which is to... Price the item and then take dollars off for each thing you don't choose.

KIMBERLY

I have an even better idea, which is to... Price the item and then take dollars off for each thing you don't choose.

JORDEN

Yes. Right. Like this is the I think sometimes we're just caught in in the system because it's easier. And like I said last. Oh, yeah. Like I said, last episode. Sorry, they blur. about if you're doing what everybody else is doing, it's harder to get in trouble as a CEO or as a management team. And so like there, there's two ideas, right? Like that reduce waste, everybody loves getting something cheaper and the company saved money, right? All around checks the boxes. But this is why I actually think we need multinationals to do it. Multinationals aren't great at actual innovation. They're great at pushing out innovation. So this is like why a lot of times when we point to examples, really promote smaller companies. Because if you can get them to grow enough, they'll get bought or they'll get copied by the multinationals, but it won't happen until it's been proven, right? And that's the big thing. They're the ones taking the risk,

KIMBERLY

thing. They're the ones taking the risk, yes.

JORDEN

Yeah, yeah.

KIMBERLY

I think that there are some industries, like I found it really interesting looking at the production and refining of raw materials. They've got the system in place, the 12 principles of circular hydrometal... I knew I would screw that one up.

JORDEN

would screw that one

KIMBERLY

Hydro metallurgy for extracting and processing and refining, you know, various rare earth minerals and so forth and special minerals and everything we need. And we did a whole episode on that too, by the way. And I think that, you know, so they're there. These people have thought them through, but it's a matter of the incentive being there to. change what's been done because it's going to cost money up front. And unless everybody is on the same level playing field with international laws or standard wide industry policies in place,

KIMBERLY

in place, people will cheat and then nobody's going to have an incentive to take that risk.

JORDEN

In our current system, we're only going to see it where the financial value on the recovery to the company is worth it. That's why I think, and we're going to get into it, but really this is a topic of burden shifting. We've placed all the burden and all the cost on municipalities. And this is like always funny. We always talk about people as consumers or as taxpayers or as citizens. And we like to separate our workers, right? Because it's like, oh, if you put these environmental laws in, we're going to hurt jobs. You as a worker will be hurt. And that really gets people. I think we often don't talk about the current system is hurting you as a taxpayer. It's hurting you as a person living in that city. And it's hurting you as a consumer because you're paying for it. And we need to get to a burden, at least a more equitable burden shifting between the various players. in here well i think too when it comes to i'm sorry i got sidetracked here because i i saw the statistic that i had written down about that only globally nine percent of all plastic waste was actually recycled and the most recent number for that was 2019 and i was thinking about you know what we've been talking about which is you know we as we talked about before with single use we are so conditioned to this that

KIMBERLY

i think too when it comes to i'm sorry i got sidetracked here because i i saw the statistic that i had written down about that only globally nine percent of all plastic waste was actually recycled and the most recent number for that was 2019 and i was thinking about you know what we've been talking about which is you know we as we talked about before with single use we are so conditioned to this that Also, the consumers don't really have much of an incentive to change either because we like convenience. So kind of on both ends of it, everybody's resistant to making change.

JORDEN

Yeah, I know. And, you know, I like to be honest with our audience about my own failings on this. So it was last week I was at a retreat for the environmental think tank, the clean energy think tank that I work for. And there was a competition where you had to take a picture of yourself showing your most un -environmental behavior. And it was got a lot of funny, funny iterations. I just sadly walked out to my car to my road trip box of snacks and picked up my individually wrapped Oreos. And like I knew and I was sad, but I was also like they got me because I want my Oreos. And we talked about that and how bad road trips are for it. And yeah, again. It would have taken maybe five extra minutes to buy just a box of Oreos and then put them into like reusable bags. Right. But even there, you're out, you see it, you get it. And so that's that's I want to just own that culpability because it is on the consumer side, too. We have some of these options and I could have spent five minutes to do it. And we're not seeing those shifts. It's hard to it's hard to say companies go do it when we're not seeing the shift on the consumer side either.

KIMBERLY

And that I mean. I always feel the same way that I should be doing more, I should be doing more. And I do reuse Ziploc bags, as I'm sure everybody knows who's a regular listener, and wash them out to my husband's utter annoyance. And a lot of times if something does need to be rewashed, I'm the one who does it. I'm the one who dries it. I'm the one who hangs it on the fridge with the little magnet until it fully dries and put it in the drawer and then reuse it. but but that's just it there are so many things that I don't do like I used aluminum foil today when we made lunch and and it was 100 recycled aluminum foil and because of that it was also kind of thin so it was hard to rewash and reuse and so it ended up in the garbage and I felt horrible and I hate using it but because of what I was making it needed that little crunchy under coating that right so it was breaded and it needed to have that that Just sticking it on a pan is just not going to give it the same effect, right? And I refused to buy an air fryer. I don't know. I can't buy one more appliance and I can't put one more thing, like the idea of putting something more on a kitchen counter. I just can't stand it. When our toaster oven died, I didn't replace it. And I was happy with that, happy for the extra counter space. But yeah, and so if I bought an air fryer and invested in that, certainly that would preclude the need for not having to use the foil. then, you know, that's going to break soon, right?

JORDEN

the need

JORDEN

Well, and so, I mean, I have the same reaction. I was a no Instapot person until someone, you know, around me got one and I used it once. And then I was like, well, now I'm an Instapot person. And I held out on the air fryer until I had fish and chips. I love like bad, you know, bad fish and chips, like from the box, right? It's just nostalgia to me. Somebody did them in - It's good food.

KIMBERLY

That's what it is. Yeah.

JORDEN

But, you know, in the oven, no matter how you cook them, they're always kind of soggy. And which is what I thought part of it. I had them done on an air fryer a couple of weeks ago and I was like sold, converted. You've got me.

KIMBERLY

Everybody I know says the same thing. You should get one. Oh, you should for everything you make and you can use less oil. And I'm like, nope, I'm sorry. I actually got to the point. And I'm the I'm also I've mentioned this before, too. I buy things and return them. I bought one. I pulled it out of the box. I saw how big it was going to take. I didn't realize how big they actually are.

JORDEN

Yeah.

KIMBERLY

And put it on the counter and I immediately put it back in the box. It did nothing else. Like, just didn't even take it out of the plastic wrap or whatever it was in. I just, that was it. Back, took it back.

JORDEN

Fair enough. Fair enough. But OK, so after, you know, after companies have kind of looked at the design of the product and how to reduce the inputs into it, the real next step, and this is still in the design, is how to design this to keep it in use. I think lots of right now when we talk about reuse, it's actually not the circular economy version of reuse, which is an intentional design of the product to be reused in multiple ways or to be repaired. Right now, it's often, you know, cool examples of how to take this thing that would have been garbage and turn it into something else. Right.

KIMBERLY

And that's something that even with the pressure on the companies to allow for more right to repair it, that still is the design. The initial design is not being changed to make that the norm.

JORDEN

100 percent. It's not here. You had a really interesting note that I when I read it, I got excited because I think that. By shifting that burden to producers and putting like an onus on them for what happens to their end product and the amount of it, it could actually be a big shift in giving consumers the option to keep it alive longer. Right.

KIMBERLY

Well, not only that, but it's really interesting because Germany in. Ages ago, like in terms of the standard of things in 1991, instituted their green dot system. And it does exactly this. It puts it actually shifts the it's called extended producer responsibility. And this is something that makes companies responsible for reducing packaging waste and facilitating facilitating collection and recollection of like the waste that goes out into the stream. And so in 1991, Germany was way ahead of the curve. And so their companies bear, it doesn't even matter if they're foreign companies, whatever, like they are responsible for the expense of packaging of anything that's sold in Germany for waste collection. It's called the life cycle of the packaging that they produce. So right there, they have to upfront think about ways that they can reduce this so they don't have to be responsible to pay in for collection and what to do with this. how much it's going to cost to have because recycling costs money too it's not just like we send it to a recycle and poof it's like ready to be used again i mean that's a whole process of sorting if it's a single stream and so forth in and of itself so according to eurostata euro data eurostat data In 2022, Germany's recycling rate was 90 .3%. I mean, that's phenomenal when you look right there at the front end of how much they've diverted from the waste stream. And so, yes, this is possible. And here's one country that's managed to be able to really push the industries to do this. Why hasn't it spread?

JORDEN

No, and you add into from the packaging episode, like how India has banned plastic packaging in it, right? It's crazy that like they don't get talked about, but these solutions exist. Companies still operate and sell in Germany. Amazon still ships in India, but you don't see them. pushed out more broadly. And I think that's kind of a question on that. Is that just on the packaging, the responsibility?

KIMBERLY

It's just the packaging part. You could easily imagine like that system being broadened out so that you're actually there is a upfront fee on the amount of end waste you're going to be,

JORDEN

could easily imagine like that system being broadened out so that you're actually there is a upfront fee on the amount of end waste you're going to be, you know, and again, to your point of different materials, different costs. If you're 90 percent of your weight's plastic, it has this fee. Right. And that would also start. I think that would do two cool things. I said cool a lot. episode. And if I've not given it away, I'm not really cool. But I think that it would it would a push if your fee was based on the materials you're using, it push you to use more easily recyclable materials or come up with workarounds. And the second, if it's based on that end kind of volume of material, it's going to push you to eliminate as much of the material and shift it. Right. So absolutely.

KIMBERLY

So I was thinking, you know, just spending any time in Europe at all. The last time I was there was in Amsterdam. And notice that in the produce section, very little produce is in clamshells, right? It's either open and there are no plastic bags provided. I guess there are some, right? But it's not a lot of that prepackaged sort of stuff. And a lot of the containers that were used were either cardboard reusable, recycled reusable cardboard or paper bags. to get away from the plastic waste. And so I feel like Europe is way ahead, especially Western Europe and the Scandinavian countries are way ahead of the rest of us in the world. And hopefully can, like with what Germany has done, set some of these trends because capitalism in and of itself really encourages planned obsolescence and doesn't account for external externalities. And, you know, also, as we just talked about, how consumers view products in the first place. It's cheaper to buy a new TV than to have something repaired. And the capitalist system rewards disposal over conservation. And so we have this incentive to just to fall in line with this rather than buck the system. And so there are two things that are going on. Most of what is produced is designed, packaged and sold with only protection. right, with the shipping and so forth, shelf life and advertising in mind. So right there, I had a student who was a graphic arts major. And she said, there was so much emphasis put on advertising, what went into how this was just to sell it off the shelf to begin with. And that had a lot to do with how it was packaged, like the actual physical materials that were used for the packaging, and how it was displayed. You have to be able to see the product. So there has to be a plastic front so you can see the thing. And it also has to be the security end of it, right? You don't want anybody to be able to easily steal it. So you can't just put it in a paper box. And so like all of those things that go into that end of it. Then the second thing is that most people deal with unwanted stuff just by tossing it into the garbage. And so it lands up in either the incinerator or the ground. And so this is basically how things go. And waste management really has facilitated all of this. And it's really interesting to me that having taught international relations and global economy and everything, that where you live in the world also actually folds into this, dovetails into this. Because in the global north, we're really good at waste management and really mediocre at recycling collection. For all sorts of reasons that support that. In the global South, they're really good at sorting on the front end and culling anything they can to keep it out of the waste stream because they're just not very good. The countries, the places where people live, the municipalities just aren't very good at waste collection. Plus, they also have a lot more opportunities to have this be a moneymaker, to be able to harvest those materials and sell them off. And that's basically what happens. Yet neither of them are good in the grand scheme of things.

JORDEN

You know, it's funny because, again, it drives the incentives that you have there, right? And I think that even in the global north, we almost want to split between countries with lots of land and relatively smaller populations for the size versus the countries with smaller land mass and more population because you see that driving. I think that the North American attitude primarily is very much we've got lots of space. It can go somewhere. And so you get good at doing that. Right. And I think that the interesting thing that you pointed out about the global South countries is the economic incentive to actually to do it, which does produce some really horrible situations, you know, in some of the images of people, as you said, essentially scavenging through refuse piles as the job. And that's I think that's a byproduct of both their own waste. But again, us then also shipping ours out. Right. So that it can be and especially with some of the recycling. I think that's a lot of countries have gotten away from taking waste, but it's still a major problem of and even in so like older waste. Right. That has a lot less of the materials is a big problem still, I think, going into some of the global south countries. So, again, this just still drives back to. If your focus is on the landfill and the recycling, we've already kind of failed.

KIMBERLY

Well, and then also, again, one thing governments are good at doing is taxing citizens in global North countries to cope with this problem, right? Because something has to happen and they don't have that money otherwise to do this. So with that, you know, in South Korea, their remedy has been... homeowners are charged by the pound based on their assorted refuse. So they actually take it out of their house. They drop it in a bin. They get like, they have to pay for what they put in. If it's recyclable, you know, it's less expensive and it's compost. It's like, great. You might, I don't know, maybe they reward them for that. I don't know. But if it's waste, like you're super penalized for this. And so that's something again, though, that's like, okay, so how do we You know, these consumers have the money to buy stuff. Well, OK, we'll make them pay for it in the global south, though. It's just like there's just not the tax base there to have coordinated waste management in in emerging economies, more so in bigger cities. Absolutely necessary, but still not necessary on par with global north countries.

JORDEN

No, and I think that's why, like, this really is, and maybe it doesn't meet the traditional definition of a market failure in economic terms, but I think it really does in terms of, like, an ethical in the world we want to live in sense. And really the only way to do this beyond, again, those very few options where it makes economic sense to do it is through regulation. And it's different at both levels, right? Like, I think to your point, like, the Global South... It's more about putting it on the companies to provide funds into so they can build that capacity on that side. And in the global north, it's more about putting in rules that actually shift some of the design and the production of it, which would have flow through to the global south. Right. Again, if you if you I always think about it, if you can get the American economy and the European economy to do something, you're sorry, if you can get California and the European economy to do something, you've basically shifted it. Right. actually just more profitable to do it for everybody that way than it is to keep the bad system.

KIMBERLY

And it's interesting with South Korea because they are one of the most recent moving up from global South to global North. There are very few countries, only Israel and Singapore are the only other two that have ever moved from global South to global North. And that's, there's such rarity. I mean, I couldn't even predict who the next country might be that might eventually get to that point. Maybe China in about a lot, a lot longer, it's gonna take a lot longer than a lot of people. often predict and so with that you know south korea though here's the example where okay more people have more buying power so we'll have them do it and and so they have fallen into that same trap that that other global north countries say using that same model what needs to shift is how india and china do things because if those if the producers targeting those economies could actually change their model and adopt more along the lines of what Germany has done. And that way, then just keeping that out in the first place, like with India's plastic ban, that is going to lay a foundation for other emerging economies. And if the other big ones like Brazil and Indonesia and so forth could fall into line, that would lay the foundation then for all of those underneath.

JORDEN

Yeah, it's actually building that better hull from the beginning rather than trying to switch it out as you're going across the ocean. And so one suggestion for coping with this is degrowth.

KIMBERLY

so one suggestion for coping with this is degrowth. And we've talked about this before, and we probably should do a whole episode on degrowth here because Jordan hates it. And I'm an idealist, so I embrace degrowth, which is basically, I think, would facilitate a circular economy for sure. The principles align with what we talked about with circular economy in that it is about minimizing resource use and environmental impact and maximizing value creation, right? And it goes back to especially those seven pillars that promote equity and well -being. Great on all of those things. I am not like 100 % big fan though of degrowth because I don't... I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that I think that I'll give my little point in a second that I think that that I don't I just don't see the potential for the whole paradigm shift.

JORDEN

give my little point in a second that

KIMBERLY

my little point in a second that I think that that I don't I just don't see the potential for the whole paradigm shift. But I do think degrowth has a lot to offer as something to aspire to.

JORDEN

So I think you get all of the value of it from circular economy, like the big points you hit of degrowth that you agree with. They're actually what we've just talked about throughout the entire circular economy. So I think you get all the benefits of it through other paradigms. And I think that you avoid all of the negatives of it. Right. So you avoid telling people that they should have less, which is never, ever a good cultural thing to do. Right. Because in the north, it's like, why are you taking away from me? And in emerging economies, it's you don't want me to have. So I think that that always gets into it. Second of all, I think that. It sounds nice when we wrap it in a sustainability packaging. So this will be my one second on it. We should really do an episode on this so I can get a lot of angry emails from friends because a lot of people in my space really like it. Right. But for me, I just as an example right now, you know, in we're in 2025 in May and we're experiencing a lot of well, what are. horrible degrowth policies on a global economic scale right now, right? Like we're looking at mass tariffs being applied across the global economy, which is causing disruption, which is going to cause contractions in economies and slow down growth. That's not a good thing. And no one thinks it's a good thing right now why it's happening like this. So I don't know how when we package it in, but it'll make us sustainable. It becomes suddenly a good thing. So that's yeah, we disagree on some of these points.

KIMBERLY

we disagree on some of these points. And we promise we will do a whole growth. Our next after our two parter on circular economy, we we commit to explaining more, much more fully our points on degrowth. But. The thing is, is with circular economy and degrowth, these are definitely pushing for better environmental practices, reusing materials, reducing emissions, reducing waste. Consumers benefit too, because consumers would get longer lasting, better quality products. governments would benefit because then they would have less waste to manage and deal with. And corporations would actually also benefit too, because they would be focusing on innovation rather than quantity. And if everyone played by the same rules, nobody has an excuse to cheat. And we know that companies can be profitable using a circular approach, which is actually what we're going to talk about in the second segment of this episode. And so it's a win, win, win, win situation. And yet, We're nowhere close to this.

JORDEN

No, we're really not. And I think that it's encouraging to see, you know, you go back 10 years when it really started like seeing more and more. And like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation really pushed the circular economy and how little of the economy actually could even be put into that box. And then you look now at where we're, you know, for. 4 .9 trillion, I believe it was the number we had for 2030. So I do see it growing. And as you said, we're going to get into some really great examples of where we're seeing this in the next part. And I think, as I mentioned, as more and more multinationals see that or see others adopt it and see the value at the end, like they're going to chase that money. So that gives me some hope. But I think we're on for this one, I'd say I think we're just on too slow of an overall because really. This episode kind of touches on so many of the, as I said, episodes we've already done that really narrowed in on one aspect of the economy or of production. And I think it's because when you add up the slowness of, you know, every time I'll be starting, oh, I'm hopeful because we see this, this and this, and maybe in 10, 15 years, it'll be there. But when you add that up across everything we've talked about, you hit just far too little of the economy actually moving towards this.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, we need to see a lot more companies moving in the direction of something that I came across, which is really cool. Blue Stripes chocolate, it's a upcycle. And this is, you mentioned upcycling in our last episode and made me really think about what upcycling really is. And it's about like, no way, like not even net zero. I mean, it's like about using everything of a product that you can. And Blue Stripes actually, it's possible to use the whole entire pod to make chocolate bars. And that is not something that's done. Only 70 % of the pod is actually used, generally speaking. There is a lot of hope. There are a lot of small examples. And that goes back to your point of we need to see smaller companies doing this because then that sets the like, OK, it's not as risky. Like we'll take a chance on that. Maybe we can fold it over into some other aspects of our companies.

JORDEN

Yeah, and people can do this across. I made the comment about like you as a worker can do this by looking for companies that have sustainable practices. It's like one of the things when I talk to companies a lot and try to like work with them on renewable energy strategies. One of the things we highlight is consistently the amount for at least for Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z, how much the environmental practices of the company across industries, even if you wouldn't think that it's connected, actually matter to your employees. So you as a worker can do that. As taxpayers and citizens, we can put pressure on government officials from the and not just your far off federal level. Right. This is municipal, state or provincial, federal. You can apply pressure. And then as consumers, again, we can shop and we can do that extra. to work to find and place our dollars. And I think that that's one of, because it's such a broad topic, circular economy, you can actually think about the ways you have leverage and where we can start applying that in across different aspects. And we will be following that up on with our next episode.

KIMBERLY

we will be following that up on with our next episode. So if you enjoyed this episode of Sustainable Planet, or even if you didn't, let us know at splanetpod at gmail .com. We appreciate those of you who have written in and told us what you think. Good or bad? We appreciate feedback. After years of being a professor and getting reviews at the end of every semester, I've got very thick skin. So really, you're not going to offend me.

JORDEN

I was going to say, you didn't like those, did you? No, I didn't like them.

KIMBERLY

No, I didn't like them. And they're the ones that always stick in your craw. But yeah, I mean, it's useful to have some of them were actually constructive and not just straight up like you suck. We're on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. You'll find these links that we talked about today in our show notes on splanetpod .com, along with additional resources. You can read more on my Substack posts. We'd really appreciate it if you would rate and review us. It only takes a minute. Thank you for listening and have a sustainable day.

Following up on landfills, planned obsolescence, and the right to repair, a circular economy offers a world where thoughtfully designed goods and their packaging result in practically no waste. Requiring a system overhaul unlikely to happen, in Part I of this segment on regenerative economy, Jorden and Kimberly focus on what we can take away from the challenges of shifting to a circular economy.

Key Topics Jorden and Kimberly discuss include:

• Just how many Rs we should be practicing

• How a circular economy is like an inverted pyramid connected to an inverted Q

• Why pursuing a circular economy is like replacing the entire hull of a ship at sea

• Why the world needs to reuse a whole lot more than the measly current 9%

• How waste streams around the world keep the system in stasis

• Why integrating a circular economy is unlikely to happen, but worth pursuing

Recommended Resources

• About a ⁠circular economy⁠, with visuals!

• About Germany’s ⁠Green Dot⁠ system and the ⁠Eurostat⁠ data

• The ⁠WEF details⁠ of a circular economy

• The ⁠ambitious 10 R’s⁠ of a circular economy

• The ⁠7 pillars⁠ of the circular economy

• Kimberly’s Substack ⁠newsletter post⁠