Recycling or circular economy?
It is frequent to confuse the terms ‘recycling’ and ‘circular economy’ and to use them interchangeably. But they encompass two different concepts. While circular economy implies recycling, recycling by itself does not mean necessarily being in a circular economy.
Recycling is the action or process of converting waste into reusable material. The concept of the circular economy goes much further.
It aims to be a close cycle in the production processes. Once a product is in the cycle it will stay in it, being used, when finished its original purpose, to make more products without the necessity of introducing in the cycle more materials extracted from nature.
So, just recycling, it is impossible to achieve the goals of the circular economy.
To stay that cycle close, it is basic to design the products with this idea. This way they will be designed to require less (or none) raw materials (materials out of the cycle), making it possible to use the existing recycled materials in the manufacturing process.
Moreover, if products are designed with the idea that later in the time they will be reused or recycled, they can be made in a way that favours those future processes, making them much simpler and more effective.
Furthermore, a lot is talk about recycling, but in a circular economy, reuse is also basic. Many recycling processes are extremely complicated and expensive, and the same material cannot be recycled an unlimited number of times, therefore reuse is an excellent opportunity.
Reusing products can be another option as they must not go through any process, they just need some previous preparation for their new use. Reusing, when products have finished being useful for a certain purpose, they can be reintroduced in the cycle.
A small fraction of the construction and demolition wastes (CDW) is currently reused. Different reasons explain this situation (economic, legal, guarantee, quality, etc.) which will be analysed in the following chapters of this document.
“Cradle to cradle” as a labelling topic should be critically reviewed and managed by the demolition industry. This helps to “keep the end in mind” whilst the design processes of products or legislative initiatives.
Still, the separability of constructions as well as construction products stands as a key issue to steer recycling options. This means recycling processes and the opportunity to recycle depend on the ability to separate materials first.
To summarize, it can be said that circular economy is based on the well-known rule of the three r: reduce, reuse and recycle. So, it seems obvious that ‘recycle’ and ‘circular economy’ does not refer to the same concepts. Recycling is just one of the processes that make it possible to establish a circular economy.
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