DeepSummary
The episode features an interview with Kate Daly, the executive director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners. She discusses the challenges and motivations for advancing the circular economy in the United States. Daly explains that while landfill tipping fees are relatively inexpensive in the US, leading to less financial incentive for circularity, some cities are starting to institute zero waste goals. However, the main drivers are global corporations mitigating risks, seeking revenue opportunities, and preparing for potential regulations.
Daly shares examples of Closed Loop Partners' work, including the NextGen consortium with McDonald's and Starbucks to reinvent the paper cup. The consortium launched a global innovation challenge, selected 12 winners for an accelerator program, and is working on infrastructure challenges. Daly also discusses chemical recycling as a potential solution for plastic waste and a project called Connect Fashion for creating digital identities for apparel to enable better end-of-life management.
Looking ahead, Daly emphasizes the need for wider socialization of the circular economy concept in the US and better storytelling around its benefits for jobs, revenue, and climate change mitigation. She suggests exploring alternative terminology if "circular economy" is too technical, but believes the underlying principles of systems change and economic prosperity without sacrificing the environment are crucial.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- The circular economy faces challenges in the US due to low landfill costs and lack of regulations, but global corporations are driving adoption to mitigate risks, seek revenue opportunities, and prepare for potential future regulations.
- Collaborative pre-competitive consortiums like NextGen are working to develop innovative circular solutions for products like paper cups and addressing infrastructure challenges.
- Promising areas for circular economy initiatives include chemical recycling for plastics and digital identities for apparel to enable better end-of-life management.
- Wider socialization of circular economy concepts, better storytelling around its benefits, and potential rebranding may be needed for broader adoption in the US.
- Aligning circular economy efforts with business interests and revenue opportunities is crucial for widespread corporate uptake.
- The plastic waste crisis, particularly ocean plastics, is raising awareness of the need for a transition away from the linear economic model.
- A holistic, systems-level approach considering the entire product lifecycle is necessary for effective circular economy solutions.
- Pricing virgin materials to reflect their true environmental and social costs could incentivize the adoption of circular practices.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “Right now, virgin commodities are artificially priced in the sense that their cost doesn't reflect the actual cost to all of us of their carbon footprint, their health and environmental impact, and the cost of their disposal.“ by Kate Daley
- “I think that circularity will be most successful when it achieves certain environmental and sustainability goals in parallel to advancing revenue and the business bottom line. And so it needs to have that versatility, agility, in order to be, to have widespread uptake.“ by Kate Daley
- “And I think that ocean plastics and that crisis has put a spotlight on the need to change the way that we're doing things. I think people in the US are growing more frustrated at these consequences of our linear system.“ by Kate Daley
- “And so we work on very holistic solutions that touch a design, manufacturing, and then after point of sale, looking at what happens within the infrastructure, how do we capture these materials, and also how do we ensure that there's a valuable market commodity coming out the other side that can then feed back into the value chain and the material stream.“ by Kate Daley
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Episode Information
Getting In the Loop: Circular Economy | Sustainability | Closing the Loop
Katherine Whalen
9/23/19