🌀 Growing In Circles Pt. 1🌀
Today we explore the ~HOW~ behind the biological cycle of the Circular Economy
Welcome back to Full Circle :) Since you last heard from us, we’ve been busy filling our bellies with pie and we hope you were able to indulge as well!
In the last issue, we learned a little bit about *what* the circular economy is. If you were left thinking…“This sounds great, but *how* does it all work?” You’re in luck - that was our question too! It turns out the answer is a little longer than we expected, so we decided to split this into two issues - this is part one!
There are so many aspects to how the Circular Economy works, so let’s dive right in.
🌀 Circulate, Eliminate, Regenerate
To set the scene we’re about to paint, let’s go over the three main goals that guide the strategy of the Circular Economy:
Circulate products and materials at their highest value for as long as possible by using them to their fullest extent. Let’s bring back our old friend the recycled cotton t-shirt from the last issue as an example: its highest value comes from being a t-shirt, but the materials it’s made of also have significant value. To maintain the highest value of the materials, we want to be able to use it as a t-shirt as long as possible. This can be achieved through implementing systems to share, lease, repair, and refurbish products to keep them in use.
Eliminate waste and pollution by developing effective systems that minimize the volume of waste that ends up in landfills, and manage the byproducts of the production process. This can be helped by designing products to be modular, durable, and easily broken down.
Regenerate nature by making sure we aren’t taking renewable materials (such as cotton or wood) faster than they can renew or regenerate. Even further than that, we also need to focus on building up natural resources through practices such as regenerative farming and avoiding the use of finite resources (like minerals and metals) as much as possible.
🌀 You’re My Butterfly, Sugar, Baby
So how do we achieve these goals? Unsurprisingly, many interconnected practices and systems are working together to do so. Just feast your eyes on the following diagram:
She’s an icon, she’s a legend, she IS the moment…she’s the infamous Circular Economy butterfly diagram. (See the wings?!) It might seem a little complicated at first, but like any good circular design, it’s easily broken down.
~Hot take~ We’re designers, so we think both of these cycles really start with making sure the products we consume are designed with these cycles in mind. We added design at the top of the diagram moving through the manufacturers in the middle to drive that home.
The most apparent part of this diagram is the two “wings” of the butterfly, which correspond to the two different material cycles in the Circular Economy: the technical cycle and the biological cycle.
Biological cycle: This is everything natural that can biodegrade such as cotton, food scraps, wood, and chipboard. These materials can re-enter the natural world after consumption without risk of pollution, as long as they are managed properly. Here we really just facilitate and support the natural cycles of Earth to keep doing what they do best.
Technical cycle: This is anything that doesn’t biodegrade such as metals, rare-earth metals, plastics, polymers, and synthetic chemicals. Since these materials cannot degrade naturally, they constantly cycle through a system that recaptures their value.
The biological and technical cycles are so important in a circular economy because when executed correctly, they work in tandem to create a closed-loop system where little to no waste is created. We tend to combine these two types of materials in our current linear economy, which makes it hard to recapture them after use. For example, we reinforce our paper milk cartons with plastic, which makes them difficult to recycle or reuse (lame). However, in the Circular Economy, it is important to distinguish between the two and keep them separate to properly recover, reuse, and recycle the materials to eliminate waste.
To better understand these two wings, let's break them down to see what makes them so important. Let’s start by focusing on the biological cycle, shall we?
Just an editor’s note that in order to explain these cycles, we have laid them out sequentially, but this doesn’t mean they always happen in this order. Sometimes a material moving through either wing of the butterfly diagram might skip a step, move through the steps quickly, be in many steps simultaneously, or cycle through one phase many times before moving on to the next. Each material requires a different process, and every material is used in different ways. Remember, the goal is to keep things in use for as long as possible!
🌀 The Biological Cycle
Collection and Cascades Phase: To kick things off, we collect biological materials to create various products for consumption. We’ll use the example of coffee beans, which we harvest from a tree, roast, and grind, to eventually end up in the consumer’s hand as a delicious cup of coffee. These beans provide their highest value through the cup of coffee, but in this circular model the value cascades (we like thinking of this as a ripple effect) by finding other ways to use the byproducts of production.
Instead of throwing the coffee grounds away to be sent to a landfill, the roaster could send them to a mushroom company that composts the grounds to grow their mushrooms. The grounds can also be used to make beauty products or as a natural dye for fabric. In this case, the coffee has cascades (or ripples!) of value through the grounds that allow for mushrooms to grow, and new products to be made.
Biochemical Feedstock Phase: Let’s start by defining biochemical feedstock, which is biological components extracted from organic materials to make products such as biofuels, bioplastics, bio-based skin care, vitamins, etc. Organic materials are collected post-harvest and post-consumer use to become biochemical feedstock.
Bringing back the mushrooms we grew from our coffee grounds, some of the mushrooms (that aren’t eaten in a delicious stir fry) have their nutrients extracted and turned into biochemical feedstock. This can be sent to a product manufacturer who could use it as an ingredient in a moisturizing face cream, or even compostable packaging to be cycled back to our consumer.
Compost Phase: Next, any organic materials that have already served their purpose and have no more cascading value are sent on to the next exciting part of their journey: to become compost. We’re probably all familiar with compost, the (often smelly) product of letting organic waste materials decompose in a controlled environment. There are a few different methods for the decomposition process, one of which is anaerobic digestion which involves using bacteria and the absence of oxygen to break down organic waste.
Let’s take a look at the waste byproduct from the mushroom farming process, a soil-like substance made of straw, manure, and decomposing mycelium. When this waste is sent to be composted through anaerobic digestion, it produces several valuable products: nutrient-rich compost to enhance our soil for agricultural use, and biogas. Biogas is basically like bacteria farts (lol), which are naturally produced during anaerobic digestion and can be harvested as a renewable fuel.
Biosphere Phase: As we just mentioned, biogas can be harvested as fuel for electricity, heat, and even cars! Cool! As it is burned, it returns to the biosphere as carbon dioxide and methane - but it’s a little different from burning fossil fuels. When fossil fuels are burned, they add carbon dioxide to the carbon cycle that wasn’t there previously, creating an excess. Since the carbon dioxide and methane from biogas were already in the atmosphere and then captured by the plants which are now decomposing, it’s merely being returned from whence it came and is considered a closed loop.
Farming and Collecting Phase: Once it’s ready, we can take all our gorgeous, smelly, and nutrient-rich compost back to our farms to start the whole dang process over again! In a circular economic model our farms, fisheries, and hunting practices are regenerative, conserve our resources, and improve our environmental biodiversity, air and water quality, soil health, and overall ecosystem health. Doesn’t that sound lovely???
Stay tuned for our next issue, where we will turn our attention to the other wing of the butterfly, the technical cycle.
Did you learn anything new or surprising to you? Read anything you disagreed with? Anything you would like to know more about? As always, feel free to drop us a comment below, we’d love to hear from you :)
Until next time!
~Cas & Grace