Circular Economy

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 14 May 2015.

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Photo of Dave Thompson Dave Thompson Scottish National Party

What an opportunity to talk rubbish, although some may say that that is my norm. I have always been a fan of the circular economy. When I was director of protective services for Highland Council, one of my responsibilities was waste management. My head of waste management was Hendy Pollock, who happens to be in the public gallery today along with fellow environmental colleagues Andy Little, Brian Donnet and John Hearmon. They have travelled from the north especially to listen to this exciting debate—actually, they were here already for a long-established lunch with me, but why let the truth spoil a good story? It was Hendy who drummed into my head the three Rs—reduce, reuse and recycle. Now, he and his colleagues have all been recycled into retirement, where I must admit they add great value to their local communities.

The modern notion of the circular economy has deep-rooted origins that are difficult to pinpoint, but it is not really new. When I was a loon in Lossie in the 1950s and 60s, we wasted nothing, and I still hate waste. Food scraps went to the hens. What the hens did not eat went into the midden, and that in turn went into the ground as compost. Wrapping paper and string were carefully preserved and used again, clothes were patched and handed down, and rags went to the raggy manny, who gave us loons and quines a balloon or toy in exchange. Everything was repaired and reused if at all possible.

I made my first bike from bits that I collected from the local dump. The only problem was that I could not find any brakes, so I used the sole of my shoe against the front tyre. That taught me about friction and rapid wear, as the sole of my shoe soon had a hole in it. My mother was not too pleased about the shoe or the fact that I had been scavenging in the dump. It is just as well that she did not know that I also collected lemonade and beer bottles from the dump, washed them in the River Lossie and redeemed them through deposit return at the local grocer’s. The grocer must have thought that my father was a secret alcoholic, as I told him that I got all the bottles at home.

After that golden era of the original circular economy, we arrived at the disposable economy and built-in obsolescence. My first experience of that was in the 1960s, with a small, cheap but excellent camera. After a good bit of usage, the button for the shutter jammed. I took it apart and found that the part of the button inside the camera had in-built serrations that were designed to damage the body of the camera and make it jam after a certain amount of use. That taught me that capitalism has only one overriding purpose: to make a profit. Therefore, if we are to get capitalists to embrace the circular economy, we must show them that it is more profitable, as legislation that forces change will never succeed on its own.

The general principle of a circular economy is that it is restorative by design and aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times. There are different schools of thought, such as regenerative design, the performance economy and the blue economy. It all sounds good, but what does it mean in practical terms?

Significant amounts of fossil fuels are used in fertilisers, farm machinery and processing, and through the supply chain. A more integrated food and farming system would reduce the need for fossil fuel-based inputs and capture more of the energy value of by-products and manures. The circular economy also increases employment, which helps to fast track the use of more circular business models, and assists with our use of renewable energy in the longer term.

The World Economic Forum’s circular economy initiative, which involves more than 30 global companies, has outlined three programmes to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. Focusing on plastic packaging, paper and paperboard, and asset tracking, the WEF aims to advance collaboration across major supply chains during 2015, to address current bottlenecks and leakages.

The annual material demand for polyester, which is used in plastic bottles and the textile industry, totals about 54 million tonnes, of which roughly 86 per cent leaks out of the system. It is estimated that nearly £2.8 billion in value could be created from better use of polyester alone.

In 2020, the total annual production of paper and paperboard will amount to about 480 million tonnes, of which some 130 million will leak out of the system. The WEF’s project mainstream wishes to address that—doing so would have a value of around £7 billion.

Asset tracking is an interesting idea. The WEF is seeking to develop a design and implementation toolkit that includes technology choice, consumer incentives and collaborative information sharing to address the information gaps that prevent better decision making on what to do with a product when a first user is finished with it. Globally, consumer electronic and household appliances with a cumulative value of roughly £270 billion reach the end of their life each year. Asset tracking could help to unlock a potential value of about £37 billion annually in those sectors alone, through more reuse, remanufacturing and recycling.

Jamie McGrigor mentioned an Inverness councillor who told him that there should be no targets without markets. I know who he means: the councillor is not actually from Inverness but is from the west—from Kyle, I think. However, the point relates to my experience. When I took over as director of protective services at Highland Council, we collected paper separately from the main waste collection, ostensibly to go for recycling. However, at the time there was no market for paper, and we spent a huge amount of money collecting paper separately—in order to take it to the local dump. Hendy Pollock and I, and our colleagues, put a stop to that because it was a gross waste of money.

We have much to gain, both environmentally and economically, from the circular economy, and I hope that the motion and its amendments get unanimous support.