Business case

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Reduced use and withdrawal of water and rate of recycling and reuse of water

Save Water (SDG6)

Producing and gathering crop and animal products from land and water through farming, hunting, and fishing

Agriculture

Collection programmes that process products and parts for reuse or recycling within other industries

Open loop collection

Developing or utilising online marketplaces to enable the peer-to-peer exchange of products and services

Peer-to-peer online marketplaces

Implementation of strategies to collect recyclable waste in order to make it accessible and available to be used as an input in industrial processes (big or small). These are door-to-door collection (higher recovery rates but more costly intensive), drop-off schemes (cheaper but less effective, more common in cities with high housing density), or a combination of the two, and their corresponding incentive schemes. 

Collect recyclables

Collection of waste arising from commercial and industrial actors

Collect non residential

Collect organic waste generated by households and related businesses for use in, for example, composting and anaerobic digestion facilities.

Collect organic

Locally produced food has to travel shorter, which means less fuel is consumed and less greenhouse gases are generated. Moreover, buying locally produced food helps local farmers and markets and creates more jobs in the local businesses. 


Produce locally

Recover and collect surplus food products that might otherwise be wasted for distribution to people.


Redistribute surplus 

In the context of cities, regenerating ecosystems refers to the active protection of native habitats or the conservation and restoration of natural habitat analogues. Examples: reforestation and afforestation in urban contexts, protection of birds and local wildlife, management of green spaces, and removal of waste and plastic (or other anti pollution measures).

Regenerate ecosystems

In some cases, animals can act as efficient bio-converters of organic waste or excess organic materials, especially when the waste or organic materials is superior (healthier and more appropriate) feedstock for the animals in question, and those animals in turn have a regenerative . Further the introduction of animals into production chains or park management can be implemented with the aim to increase biodiversity and regenerate local ecosystems. 

Involve other animals

Other

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

Urban Opportunities

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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  Illinois Manure Share is a free program that benefits livestock owners, gardeners, landscapers and the environment! It is a manure exchange program that brings gardeners and landscapers searching for organic materials for use in composting or field applications in contact with livestock owners who have excess manure. The program's goal is to remove the manure from farms that do not have the acreage to adequately utilize its nutrients on their fields or pastures. This benefits water quality by removing excess nutrients from farms and by lowering the amount of commercial fertilizer used by gardeners and others.  

Manure Share 

Illinois Manure Share

<p>Illinois Manure Share is a free program that benefits livestock owners, gardeners, landscapers and the environment. It is a manure exchange program that brings gardeners and landscapers searching for organic materials for use in composting or field applications in contact with livestock owners who have excess manure. The program's goal is to remove the manure from farms that do not have the acreage to adequately utilize its nutrients on their fields or pastures. This benefits water quality by removing excess nutrients from farms and by lowering the amount of commercial fertilizer used by gardeners and others. Read more at:</p>