Original title: Circular economy strategies for combating climate change and other environmental issues
A circular economyAn approach that aims to keep materials in use and reduce waste. aims to use materials again instead of treating them as waste. This review looks at ways to apply that idea across areas such as industry, energy, food, and transport. It points out that bio-based materialsMaterials made from biological sources, such as plants. can put pressure on land, and that carbon removal can be very expensive. It says life cycle assessmentA way to examine the environmental effects of a product or system across its life., a way to examine a system’s effects across its life, is needed to help choose better options.
Imagine using leftovers to make tomorrow’s dinner instead of throwing them away. It is hard to waste less if a replacement ingredient takes up scarce garden space or costs far more than expected. In this paper, reusing resources across industries is like making the most of the leftovers, while land use and carbon removal costs are the practical limits that must be weighed.
Industries, farmers, and governments face pressure to reduce emissions without creating new environmental problems. The review highlights a real trade-off: replacing materials with bio-based ones can affect land use, while removing carbon can be prohibitively expensive.
The abstract describes a review and a theoretical foundation; it does not report tests of specific strategies in practice or show that they achieve the stated emissions targets. It also does not give details about how the review selected or compared its sources.
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Circular economy strategies for combating climate change and other environmental issues — Mingyu Yang, Lin Chen, Jiangjiang Wang et al. — Environmental Chemistry Letters — doi:10.1007/s10311-022-01499-6
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.