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The British newspaper summarizes in ten points why a transition to a reuse and recycling system is essential.
Circular economy, based on the removal of waste through recycling and reuse, earns approval and wins newspaper headlines. The Guardian, the British newspaper renowned throughout the world, decided to explain to its readers, with ten commandments, why it’s worth changing.
1. Economic benefits
According to estimates by World Economic Forum, Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey, with circular economy models it will be possible to generate one thousand million dollars a year by 2025.
2. Waste reduction
Great Britain, like other countries, is improving its efficiency in the use of resources. According to a recent study by Wrap (Waste and Resources Action Programme) and Green Alliance, the amount of wasted resources fell from 210 million tons in the year 2000 to 160 million in 2010. In the same period, the number of recycled resources increased from 50 million to 150 million tons, while extracted or imported resources passed from 520 to 420 million tons.
3. Environmental benefits
According to a report by the “Think Tank Club” of Rome, if the basic principles of circular economy are adopted, the European carbon dioxide emissions could be 70 percent less. Among the strategies to deploy, the efficient use of resources and energy. The report affirms that, to achieve this aim, it is necessary to modernize the economic structure starting from the “Cop21” meeting in Paris in December.
4. Access is better than ownership
Rachel Botsman, author of “What’s mine is yours”, estimates that the sharing economy market currently worths 26 billion dollars. The success of businesses like “Airbnb”, “Uber” and other similar platforms, shows how perspective is changing. According to a report by “Forum for the Future”, the new trend will lead to “a new form of consumption economy in which experience and access to goods are preferable to the concept of ownership”.
5. Creating jobs
In Great Britain, the number of employees in circular activities grew from 425,000 in 2008 to 462,000 in 2012. According to Wrap and Green Alliance, with the current pace of development it will be possible to reach an amount of 667,000 employees by 2030.
6. Sharing
According to the “Retail Horizons” report, over a third of “millennials” (those born between the early 80s and 2000) use shared facilities. According to calculations by Forbes, in 2013, 3 billion and a half dollars were spent in sharing economy services.
7. Redefining spaces
In the US, 15 mayors have signed the “Resolution for shareable cities”, which recognizes the potential of sharing economy in enhancing growth and urbanization, public services and urban spaces definition.
8. Reuse is growing
Second hand objects are ever more widespread. Giants like H&M have now introduced containers to collect used clothes in order to recycle the textile fibers.
9. Changing the way we travel
In London, half of the population lives five minutes away from a Car Rental and, throughout the UK, there are over 55,000 people who hire the car as an alternative to purchase.
10. Circular economy orientated laws
Many countries around the world are beginning to put on paper their circular economy targets. The most advanced is Japan: thanks to a law made in 2002, 98 percent of metal is recovered.
Meanwhile, the European Commission is working on a new legal framework for circular economy.
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