A database designed to gather the best global practices linked to the circular economy, with over 3000 related initiatives in over 100 cities and 60 countries. The Circular Economy Club, the international non-profit network of over 2600 circular economy professionals and organizations in 60 countries, recently announced the launch of the largest open-source database of international circular economy initiatives. The circular economy is an economic system that is designed to regenerate by itself through the reuse of materials in subsequent production cycles, reducing waste to a minimum.
The circular economy could result in global growth of 1.8 trillion euro by 2030, double the growth expected under the current model. Thanks to recycling and reuse, consumption of primary materials could be reduced by 32% by 2030 and by 53% by 2050. These are significant figures when one considers that in today’s Europe 6 of the 16 tons of raw material consumed each year by every single EU citizen becomes waste. Half of this waste is not recovered and ends up in landfills.
The circular economy in Europe
According to the Centro Studi Intesa Sanpaolo, only the bioeconomy is now worth over 2 trillion euro and employs around 22 million people. No wonder Europe has launched a packet of measures, the Circular Economy Package, which includes significant allocations to member states: 1.15 billion euro will be directly managed by the European Union, while 5.5 billion euros in structural funds will be allocated to the regions. These measures, according to Brussels, in addition to reducing CO2 emissions by 2030, should create one million jobs and help Europe’s GDP to grow by an additional 7%.
According to European Union estimates, every euro invested in the circular economy today should produce ten euros of value. Waste is the key raw material. Member states will have to recycle 65% of waste by 2025 and 75% by 2030.
The circular economy: a use case
Grt Group, for example, a Swiss group that specializes in solutions to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, has developed a system that produces fuel from non-recyclable plastic and from renewable energy through a process of thermal conversion in the absence of oxygen without the need for any combustion.
The fuel produced, the company explains, is clean and compatible with existing engines and industries and offers considerable advantages, such as a severe reduction in the dispersion of plastic in the environment and in landfill, the promotion of reuse thanks to the value given to an otherwise unusable material, a significant decrease (-70%) in CO2 emissions compared to fossil fuels and to non-recyclable plastic incineration, and local production, without the need for extraction, refining and transport.