A review on circular economy: the expected transition to a balanced interplay of environmental and economic systems

Recycling of rare earths: a critical review

Towards circular economy implementation: a comprehensive review in context of manufacturing industry

Over the last decade, the concept of the circular economy has regained attention, especially related to efforts to achieve a more sustainable society. The ‘revival’ of the circular economy has been accompanied by controversies and confusions across different actors in science and practice. With this article we attempt at contributing to advanced clarity in the field and providing a heuristic that is useful in practice. Initially, we take a focus on the historical development of the concept of circular economy and value retention options (ROs) for products and materials aiming for increased circularity. We propose to distinguish three phases in the evolution of the circular economy and argue that the concept – in its dominant framing – is not as new as frequently claimed. Having established this background knowledge, we give insights into ‘how far we are’ globally, with respect to the implementation of circularity, arguing that high levels of circularity have already been reached in different parts of the globe with regard to longer loop value retention options, such as energy recovery and recycling. Subsequently, we show that the confusion surrounding the circular economy is more far reaching. We summarize the divergent perspectives on retention options and unite the most common views a 10R typology. From our analyses, we conclude that policymakers and businesses should focus their efforts on realization of the more desirable, shorter loop retention options, like remanufacturing, refurbishing and repurposing – yet with a view on feasibility and overall system effects. Scholars, on the other hand, should assist the parties contributing to an increased circular economy in practice by taking up a more active role in attaining consensus in conceptualizing the circular economy.

The circular economy: New or Refurbished as CE 3.0? — Exploring Controversies in the Conceptualization of the Circular Economy through a Focus on History and Resource Value Retention Options

It is increasingly recognized that the growing metabolism of society is approaching limitations both with respect to sources for resource inputs and sinks for waste and emission outflows. The circular economy (CE) is a simple, but convincing, strategy, which aims at reducing both input of virgin materials and output of wastes by closing economic and ecological loops of resource flows. This article applies a sociometabolic approach to assess the circularity of global material flows. All societal material flows globally and in the European Union (EU-27) are traced from extraction to disposal and presented for main material groups for 2005. Our estimate shows that while globally roughly 4 gigatonnes per year (Gt/yr) of waste materials are recycled, this flow is of moderate size compared to 62 Gt/yr of processed materials and outputs of 41 Gt/yr. The low degree of circularity has two main reasons: First, 44% of processed materials are used to provide energy and are thus not available for recycling. Second, socioeconomic stocks are still growing at a high rate with net additions to stocks of 17 Gt/yr. Despite having considerably higher end-of-life recycling rates in the EU, the overall degree of circularity is low for similar reasons. Our results indicate that strategies targeting the output side (end of pipe) are limited given present proportions of flows, whereas a shift to renewable energy, a significant reduction of societal stock growth, and decisive eco-design are required to advance toward a CE

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jiec.12244

How Circular is the Global Economy?: An Assessment of Material Flows, Waste Production, and Recycling in the European Union and the World in 2005

Summary
The recycling of metals is widely viewed as a fruitful sustainability strategy, but little information is available on the degree to which recycling is actually taking place. This article provides an overview on the current knowledge of recycling rates for 60 metals. We propose various recycling metrics, discuss relevant aspects of recycling processes, and present current estimates on global end-of-life recycling rates (EOL-RR; i.e., the percentage of a metal in discards that is actually recycled), recycled content (RC), and old scrap ratios (OSRs; i.e., the share of old scrap in the total scrap flow). Because of increases in metal use over time and long metal in-use lifetimes, many RC values are low and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Because of relatively low efficiencies in the collection and processing of most discarded products, inherent limitations in recycling processes, and the fact that primary material is often relatively abundant and low-cost (which thereby keeps down the price of scrap), many EOL-RRs are very low: Only for 18 metals (silver, aluminum, gold, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, niobium, nickel, lead, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, tin, titanium, and zinc) is the EOL-RR above 50% at present. Only for niobium, lead, and ruthenium is the RC above 50%, although 16 metals are in the 25% to 50% range. Thirteen metals have an OSR greater than 50%. These estimates may be used in considerations of whether recycling efficiencies can be improved; which metric could best encourage improved effectiveness in recycling; and an improved understanding of the dependence of recycling on economics, technology, and other factors.

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What Do We Know About Metal Recycling Rates

Dust formation in Electric Arc Furnace: Birth of the particles

ULCOS (www.ulcos.org) is a unique partnership of European steelmakers, technology and equipment suppliers, institutes and universities. The ULCOS programme aims at cutting the CO2 footprint of the ...

ULCOS: ultra-low CO2 steelmaking

The article assesses the future role of hydrogen‐based iron and steel making and its potential impact on global material flows, based on a combination of technology assessment, material flow analysis, and microeconomic analysis. Renewable hydrogen‐based iron production can become the least‐cost supply option at a carbon dioxide (CO2) price of around United States dollars (USD) 67 per tonne. Availability of low‐cost renewable electricity is a precondition. Australia is the world's largest producer of iron ore and at the same time a country with significant low‐cost renewable electricity potential. A shift to direct reduced iron (DRI) exports could reduce global CO2 emissions substantially and at the same time increase value added in Australia, while maintaining steel production in countries that are currently processing ore into iron and steel, such as China, South Korea, and Japan. The approach could be expanded to other parts of the world and other energy‐intensive industry sectors. Such relocation analysis in a climate context can become a new industrial ecology research area. Iron and steel industry CO2 emissions can be reduced by nearly a third, around 0.7 gigatonnes (Gt) CO2 per year. To achieve these emission reductions, investment of USD 0.9 trillion, or 0.7% of the total energy sector investment needs, would be required, global DRI production would have to increase seven‐fold from today's level, and the hydrogen energy used would equal 1% of global primary energy supply. Such a shift could develop from 2025 onward at scale, if the right policies are put in place.

Renewables-based decarbonization and relocation of iron and steel making: A case study

The Circular Economy is a contemporary and popular concept that describes how materials and resources should be handled in the future: the European Commission has recently published a communication setting the relevant policy trends. The present paper discusses some of these issues, proposing an analysis of what the concept means from the standpoint of materials stakeholders and how it can be refined or nuanced with a practical approach in mind. The core of the Circular Economy is the recycling of materials, which are recovered from the collection of end-of-life (EoL) investment or consumer goods. The key word is therefore recycling of EoL goods, materials, metals, minerals, residues and by-products and also molecules, like CO or CO2 (Carbon Capture Use and Storage, CCUS). Recycling brings materials savings and reduces the need for virgin resources (primary raw materials). When materials are recycled to the same material, other environmental benefits can also be collected, like energy savings, greenhouse gas emission reduction and a smaller environmental footprint in general. The kind of recycling that ought to be privileged is therefore that which improves all of these indicators at the same time, thus material-to-the-same material recycling. The circular economy should be described material by material, in order to analyze in detail what is already being done and what can still be improved: the various materials achieve very different levels of recycling and thus policies for going beyond present achievements will differ according to each material. The circular economy has an important time dimension, as many materials are stocked in the economy for long times, sometimes half a century or more. The lifespan of the material stocks means that high recycling rates today will be translated into high-recycled contents only in the future, sometimes in the long time. The Circular Economy is a long-time endeavor! There are two important tools for dealing with these issues, LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and MFA (Materials Flow Analysis). They incorporate the cycle time of recycling but need to be expanded into dynamic LCA and MFA in order to become fully time-dependent. Policies founded on LCA at a microeconomic scale, and MFA at a macro-economic scale are the most apt to mirror how the socio-economic system works and thus to avoid negative rebound effects. Fostering the use of these tools is an important element in encouraging the Circular Economy. But it is also important to understand that the rationale for moving in this direction is environmental and political, not necessarily economical. Thus it will not be enough to foster technological R&D (Research & Development) and to achieve R&I (Research & Innovation): tools to internalize these externalities in the market economy will need to be introduced more widely.

Jean-Pierre Birat

Papers

What Do We Know About Metal Recycling Rates

Dust formation in Electric Arc Furnace: Birth of the particles

ULCOS: ultra-low CO2 steelmaking

Renewables-based decarbonization and relocation of iron and steel making: A case study

Life-cycle assessment, resource efficiency and recycling