18 Circular Economy Initiatives

As the cold weather begins & the holiday seasons are upon us, catalogues are arriving every day and tempting us with new fashionable clothes. However, shopping for new clothes- Fast Fashion- is generating 14 million tons of textile waste into our landfills. Textile waste can take up to 200+ years to decompose, releasing methane gas and toxic chemicals & dyes into our groundwater & soil. The average American discards approximately 80 pounds of textile waste -clothing, towels, linens, purses, shoes, etc.-each year.  Almost every kind of fabric if it is clean & dry, can be recycled, even the oldest pair of underwear, but not in curbside recycling bins. (www.greenmatters.com) Recycled textiles are sorted by type, fabric (synthetic versus natural fibers) & color, then pulled into fibers or shredded, re-spun into yarn to be woven, or compressed into filling such as insulation.

Today, the Clorox-owned personal care brand announced plans to be Net-Zero-Plastic-to-Nature by 2021 and shared updates on packaging improvements, new product launches, waste elimination initiatives, and smart partnerships—all part of the Burt’s Bees plan for circularity. “The challenges of the pandemic have only heightened the importance of protecting nature as a resource, for the health of people and all life on Earth,” ​Burt’s Bees Senior Director of Sustainability Paula Alexander, points out in today’s media release about the personal care brand’s latest sustainability goals. “That’s why we’ve chosen to focus on systemic changes across our supply chain while working toward a circular economy—to enable a more connected and stable relationship between people and nature,” ​she says. The brand is using Plastic Waste Reduction Standards established by the non-profit climate action and sustainable development organization Verra​ as well as those outlined by The 3R Initiative​ (in partnership with EA, South Pole and Quantis).

With the increase in  research on the circular economy system, the basic income and circular economy relationship has also started to be considered. For example, this relationship was examined in the article ‘‘How could a Basic Income support a Circular Economy?’’ published on the Basic Income Network Scotland website on 23 July 2019. In fact, this article is based on the transcript of an interview between Timothea Armor, Basic Income Network Scotland Editor, and Teja Hudson, a zero waste consultant and founder of Zero. The current system of capitalism, free markets, and endless growth, according to Hudson, disappoints us socially. She points out that there are many people who want to make the world a better place, but this disappointment forces them to struggle just to survive. Therefore, she claims that we have lost many bright and creative minds due to preventable social inequalities such as poverty, hunger, disease, gender inequality, persecution, violence and lack of education. Finally, she suggests we need social change, and  these people represent a great untapped potential for that social change.

Despite what has already been achieved by many fleets, it can still be a daunting task to start on the road to electrification.Kim Harrison explains how the Crown Commercial Service can help public sector fleets access solutions to meet their sustainability targets…