Original title: Targets for a circular economy
A circular economyAn approach to making and using goods that aims to keep materials and products in use instead of treating them as waste. aims to keep products and materials useful rather than discard them. Governments often try to encourage change by setting targetsSpecific goals used to guide or measure action., such as targets for recycling. The study sorts targets using ten strategies, from refusing and reducing to repairing, reusing, and recycling. It finds that meeting recoveryGetting materials or value back from discarded products or waste. or recycling targets does not necessarily make the economy more circular, and proposes additional targets.
Imagine setting a goal for a household to sort more rubbish for collection. That can help, but it does not stop people buying things they soon throw away or help them repair what breaks. In this paper, recycling and recovery goals are like the sorting goal, while the wider set of targets also covers refusing, reducing, reusing, and repairing things so more value stays in use.
Governments use targets to steer how goods and materials are made and used. This study argues that targets focused only on recovery and recycling may miss ways to prevent waste, keep products in use, and retain their economic value.
The abstract does not report how the proposed targets perform in practice, or establish that adopting them will achieve a circular economy. It describes an analysis of existing and proposed targets and their alignment with circular economy strategies.
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Targets for a circular economy — Piero Morseletto — Resources Conservation and Recycling — doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104553
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.