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Circle Economy and ICLEI have partnered up to initiate the go to knowledge hub of case studies about the circular economy in cities. The Cities Collection is a repository of case studies that demonstrate the role of cities in the circular transition, and includes policies, business cases and research articles. Cases in the Collection flow into an ecosystem of digital products which support users in transitioning cities to circularity, for example [Ganbatte](https://ganbatte.world/cities/) and <a href="https://circulars.iclei.org/" target="_blank">ICLEI Circulars</a>, both part of the <a href="https://circulars.iclei.org/circle-lab-for-cities/" target = _blank">Circle Lab for Cities Programme.</a>

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Circular Cities

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Policy case

Impact on increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

Direct and indirect effects that increase revenues or the potential for new revenues, for example from new products, customer segments, partnerships or business models

Revenue Potential

Efficiency gains on operations or transactions either through cultural or technological shifts

Productivity

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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)

Producing agricultural products and processing them into food and beverageproducts for consumption

Agri/Food

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

Agriculture

Utilise bio-based, reusable, non-toxic and non-critical materials

Regenerative materials

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

Conduct research

Includes measures that protect and enhance ecosystems and biodiversity both within and beyond city boundaries, as well as actions to restore degraded ecosystems.


Protect and restore local ecosystems

Increase efficiency and promote local economic growth by shortening supply chains and connecting local producers to consumers.


Support local low-impact circular economies

The food system nourishes populations and employs 50% of the global workforce, but:
- it currently drives a quarter of the overshoot on the climate change planetary boundary due to its greenhouse gas (GHG) production, 
- animal farming alone uses over one-quarter of all land, equivalent to the size of the Americas,
- nearly a quarter of freshwater resources are lost due to rampant food waste, and
- it is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss.

A circular food system must address the whole value chain, from production to consumption to waste management. The four key solutions for the food system are:
- Put healthier, satiating foods first: Prioritise satiating and healthy foods with a lower environmental impact—ideally shifting calories from meat, fish, and dairy towards cereals, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
- Go local, seasonal, and organic: Prioritise the production and consumption of local, seasonal, and organic produce (sometimes in combination with GMO to reduce pests and disease loss on crops), which can lead to a significantly reduced need for chemical inputs, fuels, and processing services that contribute to environmental impacts.
- Mainstream regenerative agriculture: Scale up agricultural practices that regenerate ecosystems, recirculate nutrients and sequester carbon by design. 
- End avoidable food waste: Minimise food loss and valorise waste following the food waste hierarchy along the supply chain and at the consumer level through better management of transport and storage, more refrigeration and smart planning, and technology at the consumer and food service levels.



🍏 Food Systems

Communities

Impacts

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Industries

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A framework of policy instruments that enabled and encourage the transition to the circular economy

Policies

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A framework of policy instruments that enable and stimulate the transition to the circular economy

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

The Circular City Actions Framework provides urban changemakers with five complementary strategies they can use to start working towards a more circular system. 

The framework is action-based to provide users with concrete strategic directions and showcase the desired outcomes of each strategy. 
The framework consists of five complementary **strategies**, under which **sub-strategies** provide further detail. Finally, each sub-strategy consists of a diversity of tangible **solutions** which are framed in relation to key thematic areas. 

Note: solutions are currently focused on:
- 🍏 **Food systems**
- 🏢  **Built environment**
- 👕📱  **Consumer goods**
- ⚡ **Energy Systems**
- 🚌 **Mobility Systems**
- 💧 **Water Systems**

More thematic areas are coming soon...

'Click through each of the five strategy cards below to explore the framework and circular economy case studies in more depth!'



This framework was developed in collaboration with ICLEI, Metabolic and Ellen MacArthur Foundation with support from the MAVA Foundation. Read more about it [here]( https://circulars.iclei.org/action-framework/). 



Circular City Actions Framework

An action-based framework for local governments working towards circular cities

Thematic Areas

City Stakeholders

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Accra

City of Accra

This report showed how urban agriculture can develop in Accra to become more sustainable and presented examples of circularity in two different areas of Accra: Plant Pool and Roman Ridge.For instance, training to use on-site poultry manure composting to replace fertilizers have been provided on both sites. This method can lead to not only improving vegetable quality, but also to reduced threats to health and environment. 11 of 12 farmers interviewed on Plant Pool have set up their own composting sites.

Report: Urban agriculture leading Accra towards sustainability 

Article / Report

Replace freshwater with less impactful alternatives and enact water efficiency measures

Regenerative water

This report examines the status of urban agriculture in Accra and explores barriers for success as well as potential strategies for the future.

Potential future for urban agriculture in Accra

Engage with the government on circular policies and programmes

Government collaboration

Engage with the local community where facilities or offices are located

Community collaboration

  The Government of Ghana (GoG) has engaged the World Bank and USAID in supporting agricultural development project – the Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (GCAP), with the principal objective of improving the investment climate for agri-business and developing inclusive Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs) and smallholder linkages aimed at increasing on-farm productivity and value addition in selected value chains. ‘Modernizing agriculture’ remains the overarching theme of Ghana’s agricultural policy as well as the new private sector development strategy. It focuses on a stronger role for the private sector in transforming agriculture from a low-productivity subsistence-based sector to one characterized by high-productivity, integrated value chains, and extensive value addition. Government interventions are focused on the enabling environment and other targeted measures to facilitate such investment, alongside more direct interventions targeted at food insecure areas. Ghana’s current agricultural policy framework and national development plan emphasizes the importance of graduating from a subsistence-based small-holder system to a sector characterized by a stronger market-based orientation based on a combination of productive small-holders alongside larger commercial enterprises engaged in agricultural production, agro-processing and other activities along the value chain. To maximize the impacts of private investment in agriculture on development, a particular focus is to facilitate small-holder linkages with other commercial businesses through, for instance, contract farming and out-grower schemes. Recognizing some of the challenges of past efforts, the Government is adopting a new approach of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in which complementary and targeted public support serves to leverage of facilitate private investment in the agriculture sector. A major thrust of the new approach centres on enhancing the role of commercial agriculture and strengthening agricultural value chains. Under the program the Government is seeking to broaden and deepen private sector investment in agriculture – noting that it is already occurring but can be augmented – in the following ways:  Additional large-scale commercial farms in the cereals sector has the potential to utilize large tracts of unutilized land to meet domestic consumer demand (rice, white maize) and as lower-cost imports to the poultry industry (yellow maize) and, ultimately, for export to the region. There are additional opportunities for multinational investors to expand the horticulture sector, given Ghana’s established market presence in Europe and favorable geographical position, to raise export revenues. Additional agro-processing especially in the horticulture sector can provide alternative markets to local production that is unable to meet European requirements (tastes or standards) and create jobs. More private input dealers can extend the availability of seeds and fertilizer to raise productivity across the sector. Additional private enterprises engaged in the marketing and processing of food staples for local consumption, for instance by aggregating output from small-holders for bulk distribution and processing to generate economies of scale in the value chain.  Innovative institutional arrangements between large(r) scale investors and small-holders can generate mutual benefits and provide effective mechanisms for bolstering small-holder productivity. For instance, out-grower schemes provide linkages between vertically integrated plantations and surrounding small-holders. Contract farming arrangements can provide benefits for input and output dealers and small-holder farmers. To this end, the Government is keen to develop the Accra Plains through Public Private Partnership (PPP) and provide support to encourage the development of nucleus investment arrangements for the benefit of local smallholder farmers.     The  Proposed  Project The project development objective is increased access to land, private sector finance, input output  markets by smallholder farms from PPP in commercial agriculture in Accra Plains and SADA Region  and increasing on-farm productivity and value addition in selected value chains. The main outcome of the project would be an improved investment climate that delivers more – and more inclusive – private sector investment in agriculture. Accordingly, project success would be defined by the following results:  Increased private investment in agriculture should increase across a range of related enterprises including large(r)-scale commercial farming, agricultural processing and marketing industries and small-scale entrepreneurial farmers. An expansion of marketing arrangements that link small-holders with larger commercial entities. (These commercial entities could be engaged in production, as in the traditional nucleus-out grower type model, or in downstream marketing or processing, in the case of contract framing.) Increased productivity of small-holder farmers brought about by a combination of (input and output) market access improvements, improved technology and behavioral shifts resulting from lower risks and/ or improved incentives generated from a stronger private-sector led agricultural sector.  Proposed Project Approach: The proposed project would be based on four main concepts:  Support and strengthen the Government’s ability to promote a sound enabling environment for commercial agriculture investment (large and small; foreign and domestic) by improving the enabling environment and developing a more pro-active investment promotion orientation.  This could include the provision of critical infrastructure in key locations. Address the fragmented nature of existing policy and capacity by consolidating core functions into a streamlined institutional structure (perhaps a one-stop-shop).  Also to improve the oversight and monitoring capability to promote sustainable agro-industry. Adoption of a ‘transaction based approach’ by seeking to identify, package, negotiate and secure specific investments, with a PPP element where necessary.  It is envisaged that a set of viable discrete projects would be identified during project preparation such that these could be mobilized rapidly upon project effectiveness. Social and environmental issues to be at the core of the project, with all commercial agriculture investments to adhere to national and World Bank standards.  The project would adopt a ‘proof of concept’ approach and would aim to adapt to experience on two fronts.  First, the limited application of PPPs in Ghana means the details of successful partnerships would be learned through application.  Second, the fragmented institutional architecture would need to be resolved early through an interim arrangement constructed around a project implementation unit while a longer term solution is identified (as part of project activities).  Consequently, the project would need to be flexible to adapt to experience.  A transaction-based approach would help retain a sharp focus on results while allowing for a pragmatic implementation modality.  This flexibility is reflected in the project scope outlined below.   Project  Scope The proposed project would have three components, with the first being focused on improving the overall investment climate for agricultural development in Ghana, and the second and third directly targeting private sector led agricultural investment involving smallholder farmers through PPP arrangements.  The second and third components would initially be focused in the SADA Region and Accra Plains regions.   Proposed  Project  Components   Component One:  Strengthening investment promotion infrastructure, facilitating secure access to land and project management. This component would ensure that Ghana attracts investors willing and able to invest in strategic subsectors that contribute most positively to national development gains. It would promote a secure investment climate – particularly with respect to access to land – that reflects rights and obligations of investors, government and affected communities. This component would establish a ‘one-stop shop’ for investment promotion, drawing on the competences from existing Ministries, Department and Agencies in a streamlined institutional architecture. This would transform the current fragmented and ineffective regime to one in which agriculture-related investment promotion efforts are focused on securing domestic and foreign investments in activities/ locations/ business models that most contribute to Ghana’s national development goals. It would also strengthen the oversight capacity of Government to ensure investors’ development plans are being fulfilled and to develop more orderly exit of failing investors and the reallocation of land to new entrants. This component would also support an improved mechanism for facilitating access to land by reducing the search costs to potential investors through an expansion of a database of land suitable for investors and by actively matching potential investors with suitable land owners. In the case of land under traditional ownership, due diligence and sensitization of surrounding communities would promote an understanding of the rights and obligations from subsequent lease agreements. A ‘model’ lease agreement would be developed to form the basis of all subsequent investor agreements, and which includes indicative arrangements for managing leasehold payments and other community development-type funds. Component Two:  Securing PPPs and small-holder linkages in the Accra Plains This component will conclude a transaction for a PPP in an irrigation investment in the Accra Plains. The entire Accra Plains Plains area extends to around 150,000ha and the ultimate objective of the Government is to fully develop the entire area.   .  It would also assist with land acquisition under the one-stop-shop proposed above.  It would also include additional support to extend nucleus investments for the benefit of small-holders through various means including assistance to expand necessary infrastructure into out-grower lands as well as direct support to the smallholders to ensure they are capable out-growers.  This component would focus on the Accra Plains, where an area  has been proposed (in general terms) for a substantial irrigation investment to be managed under a PPP and which would supply water to both large commercial farms and an out-grower scheme. Component three:  Securing PPPs and small-holder linkages SADA Regions This component would involve the identification and realization of private investments in the value chain through PPPs.  Investors could be local or international.  Investments could be in production or processing and ancillary businesses.  This would provide assistance for the establishment of large commercial farms as nucleus farms with appropriate linkages under out-grower schemes.  Support to the nucleus would include critical access infrastructure including roads, power connections and primary irrigation facilities.  This would include support to warehousing and storage through the rehabilitation and concessioning of publically owned marketing infrastructure (including the development of warehouse receipts system).  It would also include support for agri-business centers that provide essential services and inputs to small-holder farmers.  This would initially focus on the Northern Region, but would be responsive to opportunities in other regions if these were of sufficient scale.  (It would be important to avoid supervisory activities being spread too thinly across a wide area in order to keep management costs down.) For all investments so assisted, the project would seek to leverage small-holder participation.  Project activities would include developing a framework for out-grower schemes and contract farming arrangements that would sensitize potential small-holder participants in order to align expectations of both small-holders and the ‘nucleus’.  This project would support start-up costs resulting from institutional demands of sustainable small-holder linkages as well as any investment costs from new agronomic practices etc. that maximize the impacts of marketing linkages.  Activities could include:  organizing small-holder participants into groups and building their capacity to become capable partners, recognizing the greater demand for business acumen in negotiating beneficial arrangements with investors; grants to meet the establishment costs of small-holder farmers (land preparation, planting material, etc.); and/or working capital for out growers to procure necessary farm inputs (improved seed, fertilizer).  To encourage investors themselves to finance small-holder linkages as part of their integrated business model (and thereby maximizing the use of IDA resources), while recognizing the increased financial risks from doing so, this would include a risk sharing mechanism (eg. first loss cover). 

Government of Ghana

A policy proposal from the Government of Ghana to develop agriculture on the Accra plains to benefit smallholders, with environmental and social issues being at the heart of the strategy.

Strategy to develop agriculture on the Accra plains 

Collecting waste from households and businesses by means of refuse bins, wheeled bins, containers, etc., and providing treatment, incineration, materials recovery and reclamation, and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste

Waste Management

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within the same industry

Valorise waste streams - closed loop

Public-private partnerships

Public-civil partnerships

Develop infrastructure to support resource cycling

The circular potential of organic wastes is dependent on the quality and low contamination rate of the residual stream that is collected. Food and organic wastes are difficult to sort and separate post-collection, and as such, collecting organic wastes through a mixed collection are often limited to incineration or landfill. Therefore, collecting organic wastes through a separate collection system is key to unlock potential high-value management practices, for example, composting and anaerobic digestion.

Due to the strong influence over the operation of local waste management systems, local governments have a key role in the provision of separate organic waste collection systems throughout the city. Collections systems can vary to suit the specific characteristics of particular neighbourhoods and areas of a city. For example, areas with detached homes have more space for bins, while for apartments with less space, a communal receptacle may be more appropriate. Communication campaigns can help to raise awareness and encourage participation of residents to separate their organic wastes. 


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🍏  Separate organic waste collection infrastructure

Managing municipal food wastes at scale may require complex and costly infrastructures to collect, transport and process these residual materials. Large-scale composting facilities are challenging to place and zone appropriately in space-scarce cities.

Community-based initiatives, for example, community composting, can provide a localised solution to managing urban food wastes. Community composting initiatives are small(er)-scale solutions that are distributed throughout the city, located close to the sources of food waste, reducing the need for complex logistics and collection systems. Community composting schemes can take a variety of forms, for example, in-vessel composting (IVC), as well as vermicomposting (which utilises insects to break down organic materials). Community composting initiatives can generate valuable by-products for use in (urban) agriculture, in gardens and in parks, as well as support community building. 

Local governments can support the development and implementation of community composting schemes through the provision of equipment and infrastructure, for example,  composting boxes. The formation of public-civic partnerships can help formulate the relationships and validate the valuable role such activities can play in the management of organic waste streams. Awareness raising can be facilitated through collaboration with schools. 


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🍏  Community composting

Businesses

Governments

        Located in the Tema Free Trade Zone, conveniently adjacent to the Aflao highway and Tema Port, this modern facility offers regional distribution for multinationals, storage and processing for local and international companies, and laydown yards and warehousing for the oil and gas industry.                           165,000 SQM of land, warehousing space, open yard space in Tema Free Zone in Accra.                      Kotoka International Airport, Accra                    Title  Address  Description   Kotoka International AirportKotoka International Airport, Airport Rd, Accra, GhanaKotoka International Airport3rd Maamobi link, Accra, GhanaTakoradi Harbour, GhanaTema Harbour, Tema, GhanaAgility Logistics Park, Tema87 Spintex Rd, Accra, Ghana             

There is no formal dedicated organics collection service provided by the city, but there are two innovative models currently in place in Accra: a community‐based, small‐scale composting project and a large‐scale, open‐windrow facility with a materials recovery unit.

Organic waste collection in Accra

Report detailing the waste management crisis in Accra. Suggests that efficient waste management must be born from community and government collaboration and that there's significant potential for innovation and job creation in the sector.

Recommendation for efficient waste management in Accra for more prosperous future

         
                 Since 2016, Ghana has been in a growth dynamic that could, according to the international financial institutions (International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and African Development Bank) make it one of the leading countries in Africa, ahead of both Ethiopia and Ivory Coast in terms of economic growth (more than 8% growth in 2018). With over 30 million inhabitants and an estimated GDP of 54.9 billion EUR in 2018, Ghana has become a middle-income country.  Ghana is making significant progress in sustainable development. It is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa to have a documented national climate change policy and an implementation plan for its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) effort as per the Paris Agreement (2016). As well as actions on climate changes, Ghana implements a larger environmental policy (development of sustainable energy, pollution control, resources protection, etc.). Accra Pilot Project in Plastics Management   With a population of nearly 2.9 million, Accra is a rapidly growing capital, producing nearly 2,000 metric tons of waste each day, of which only an estimated 60% is collected. As a result, uncollected plastics obstruct the drainage systems, are burnt illegally, or end up in streams and the ocean. In this context and in early 2018, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) decided to implement a pilot project to reduce Accra’s plastic pollution. This project would contribute to the objectives announced by the Global Plastics Action Partnership (GPAP) and intend to address shortcomings in the waste collection and management system, and to encourage investment in recycling and processing facilities. Seureca, the Veolia's consulting engineering division, has been assisting the DFID on partnerships development, facilitation, and to catalyze investments. Seureca has also provided technical support, innovations and recommendations for scaling up and duplication of this project.    
              In October 2019, Seureca participated in the launch of GPAP in Ghana Ghana is the first African state to join the Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP). This was officially announced in Accra on October 1st at the kick-off meeting with Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo. After opening the conference, the President invited many local and international actors to take the floor and communicate their engagements and initiatives in the fight against plastic pollution. On this occasion, Seureca presented its activities, in particular the project currently underway in Accra for better plastics management. Seureca's teams also used this opportunity to share their experiences during the various workshops held throughout the day. Learn more about GPAP ► https://www.weforum.org/gpap      
   

     At the end of the project, Seureca will have helped the DFID and the Government of Ghana with:  The establishment of a pilot project for an innovative management of plastic waste in Accra, taking the international best practices into account and proposing a strategy for its execution and financing;   A close partnership created between the key actors, including the Government of Ghana, municipal authorities, industries, private companies, and investors;   The identification of a clear strategy and roadmap to accompany the implementation of legislative reforms, the development of a plastic waste collection and management system, and the necessary investments in a plastic waste management infrastructure. 
 Documentation of the experience gained from the installation of this project, to inform and assist the implementation of this approach in other countries and/or regions. 
   
  
  

Pilot project for plastic waste management in Accra.

 Better prospects for plastic waste management in Accra

  On 6 and 7 November 2019, GRET participated in the conference entitled “Sustainable cities: the challenges and opportunities of waste management and urban mobility in Accra”. Organised by the French Embassy in Ghana and the Accra Metropolitan District, the objective of the conference was to ascertain the issues and challenges faced by the Ghanaian capital, and to open up prospects via discussions and sharing of experience. The conference brought together almost 250 participants, including the French Ambassador in Ghana, Anne-Sophie Avé, and the Mayor of Accra, Mohammed Adjei Sowah.
The subjects covered during the conference will be attentively further discussed at the Africa-France Summit in June 2020 in Bordeaux, France. They will also be at the heart of future decentralised cooperation between the mayors of Paris and Accra.
In light of this, GRET’s expertise in the area of waste management and inclusion of informal operators was highlighted with the presentation on the Filipa project  in the Republic of Congo, aimed at better integration of informal household waste pre-collection operators by the municipality of Brazzaville.
The presentation on this action conducted by GRET was well received. In Accra, although management of the service was delegated to private companies, there are a multitude of small informal operators providing similar or complementary services, also contributing to increasing the service’s level of coverage and improving cleanliness in the city. So, the adoption of measures aimed at greater recognition and integration of informal operators, as tested by GRET in Brazzaville, could also be a solution to improve their working conditions and urban cleanliness. More information on GRET’s waste management activities  

Examines the challenges of and opportunities for improving waste management systems in Accra.

Challenges and opportunities for improving waste management systems in Accra

Report establishing a circular economy framework for improved plastic management in Ghana.

Circular economy framework for improved plastic management in Ghana

Paper explaining why glass is used extensively on the facade of buildings in Accra.

The explanation behind using glass extensively on the facade of buildings in Accra

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Study examining sustainable construction practices in Accra. Finds that minimised resource consumption is a key principle in the context of the Ghanian construction industry.

Sustainable construction practices in Accra, Ghana

Report/case study about the reuse of construction waste and construction waste management in Accra.

Reuse of construction waste for sustainable construction in Accra

Impact on the availability of resources as well as their effect on living organisms, ecosystems, and components of the environment.

Ecological Impact

Impacts on the financial condition of a company, as well as the the economicconditions of its stakeholders and on economic systems at local, national, andglobal levels.

Economic Impact

Scalability

Producing transporation equipment and providing services for thetransportation of goods and people

Transportation and Logistics

Producing building materials and providing services to create residential and non-residential infrastructure and real estate


Construction and Infrastructure

Producing basic and specialty chemicals, inks, agricultural chemical such as fertilisers and pesticides, plastics including packaging, and rubber

Chemical and Plastic

Utilise waste streams as a source of secondary resources and recover waste for reuse and recycling

Use waste as a resource

Participating in government programmes that support and advance the circular economy

Government programmes

'Manage' influences the use and function of physical and material elements within the urban environment. 

Manage

Infrastructure

Redesign systems to lay the foundation for circular activities and enable the transition to a circular economy 

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Rethink

**Harmonize with nature** by promoting infrastructure, production systems and sourcing that allows natural ecosystems to thrive




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Regenerate

Eliminate waste by maximizing the recovery of resources at the end of the use phase so that they can be reintroduced into production processes


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Recover

High-level changes to policy and practice (such as taxation systems, investment and procurement guidelines and criteria) that disincentivize activities that perpetuate linear economic systems, as well as vision-setting (goals, roadmaps) to catalyze
action on circularity across the city

Eliminate linear incentives and set goals and incentives for circularity

Process waste into valuable industrial inputs or consumer products; distribute processed waste to users.

Process waste and ensure its re-entry into industry at its highest value

The demand for transport is rising globally—but current modes are heavily material- and fossil-fuels-intensive. Emissions from the transport system could grow by 60% by 2050, and transport is the number-one user of oil worldwide. GHG emissions result not only in warming global temperatures, but also in ocean acidification, which has severe consequences for entire ecosystems and further destabilises our climate. The transport system also drives land-use change and biodiversity loss through the development of infrastructure—also releasing harmful pollutants into the ocean. Key circular solutions:

- Embrace and enable car-free lifestyles
- Invest in high-quality public transport
- Rethink unnecessary air travel
- Electrify remaining vehicles

🚌 Mobility Systems

Globally, 13% of global resources consumed relate to mobility. This includes transport infrastructure, from roads, to rail, to cycle routes ([Ellen MacArthur Foundation](https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy-opportunity-and-benefit-factsheets)). Virgin materials sourced to build mobility infrastructure often include cement and asphalt, which are responsible for a significant portion of global greenhouse gas emissions (cement—a constituent component of concrete—is responsible for an estimated 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions) ([BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46455844)). 

The materials that are required for the construction of transport infrastructure can be sourced from residual materials, to offset the demand for virgin resources. Construction techniques that utilise residual material are often less intensive in relation to greenhouse gas emissions, and can help to lower the material footprint of mobility infrastructure. A range of residual materials can be used within mobility infrastructure. These can come from conventional materials, such as cycled concrete and other stones and aggregate. As well as other residual materials such as plastics and rubber from end of life tyres. 

Local governments can support the cycling of materials for mobility infrastructure by mandating a certain proportion of recycled material input in tenders for new developments or renovations of existing infrastructure. For example, criteria could stipulate that all residual materials within renovations must be cycled back into the project, for example as aggregate. Alternatively, criteria could stipulate a minimum proportion of material inputs from cycled sources, or ban the landfilling of certain residual materials. Collaboration and engagement with local businesses can help local governments to identify the most appropriate criteria that the local market is able to satisfy, and support the most effective transition towards a more circular economy. 


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🚌  Cycled materials for mobility infrastructure

Cities can directly support the transition towards a circular economy and emission reduction targets by leading by example through their public procurement activities. This is especially true regarding the built environment, as cities manage a sizable portfolio of buildings and infrastructure. Through procurement, local governments can help to develop the market for circular products and services, including circular materials as well as product-as-a-service or leasing models for building components (such as flooring, elevators and lighting). They can also manage the existing and future building stock in a way that contributes to closed energy and material loops within supply chains, whilst minimising—and ideally avoiding—GHG emissions across the entire life-cycle of procured construction materials and activities. 

Local governments have several levers at their disposal: investing in renovation and maintenance work, retrofitting and repurposing (if necessary) existing building stock to avoid new construction, and specifying circular criteria in public tenders for the design, construction and management of buildings. These criteria could, for instance, include mandatory requirements for the use of secondary or bio-based materials in new development projects, or specify design for adaptability, deconstruction and reuse. Additionally, the uptake of ‘green contracts’—agreements that require the contractor to develop and implement a site management plan and favour certain types of resources—can also stimulate circular operations by integrating circularity in the legal relationship between building owners, operators and users. Furthermore, to increase the use of secondary materials, local governments can deploy staging areas, in which recovered construction waste can be temporarily stored for reuse. 

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🏢  Circular public procurement for new buildings and infrastructure

         An engineer inspects paving blocks made from recycled plastics in a suburb of Accra, Ghana. CRISTINA ALDEHUELA/AFP via Getty Images       Roads in which waste plastic is melted down and mixed with paving materials are becoming more common around the world. Although for now they remain a niche technology, experts say the roads could become one of a diverse array of uses for discarded plastic.
   By  Ann Parson  • February 11, 2021     
A road running through Accra, Ghana’s capital, looks like any other blacktop. Yet what most drivers don’t realize is that the asphalt under them contains a slurry of used plastics — shredded and melted bags, bottles, and snack wraps — that otherwise were destined for a landfill. 
The impetus for many similar road projects underway in Ghana was an ambitious plan announced by President Akufo-Addo in 2018. It calls for Ghanaians to strive for a circular model, to recycle and reuse as much plastic waste as they produce each year — roughly 1.1 million tons — by 2030.

Barely 5 percent of the 5,000 tons of plastic that Ghanaians discard each day makes it to recycling facilities. The rest winds up in landfills, illegal dumps, streets, and waterways, or is burned in open pits, poisoning the air. In a developing nation, “it’s difficult to recycle plastic,” noted Heather Troutman, program manager of the Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership. “It’s expensive, complicated, technical, and much easier just to burn it. But if you could put value on recycled plastic,” by turning it into fishing nets, fuel, or paving material, “it won’t get buried; it won’t get burned; it won’t make it to the ocean.” 
First appearing in India two decades ago, plastic roads are being tested and built in more and more countries as the world’s plastic pollution problem becomes more acutely felt. India has installed over 60,000 miles of these roads. The technology, meanwhile, is gaining ground in Britain, Europe, and Asia. Several countries — South Africa, Vietnam, Mexico, the Philippines, and the United States, among them — have built their first plastic roads only recently.

A growing number of studies say that roads containing waste plastic have the potential to perform as well or better than traditional roads. They can last longer, are stronger and more durable in respect to loads and rutting, can tolerate wide temperature swings, and are more resistant to water damage, cracking, and potholes. The technology also has the potential to reclaim anywhere from a small to a sizeable amount of plastics from landfills and random dumping, researchers are finding, while providing a significant amount for road paving and repair. In a small nation like Ghana, where only 23 percent of roads are presently paved, waste plastic could go a long way.
  Plastic roads “offer an opportunity to absorb hundreds of thousands of tons [of plastic], almost overnight,” says one advocate.
 
“We have to be realistic at some point in how we try to remediate the vast problem of plastic pollution,” Doug Woodring, the founder of Ocean Recovery Alliance, said in an email. “I believe plastic roads, if done to scale, in combination with other uses for reclaimed plastic, like concrete and fuel, will offer an opportunity to absorb hundreds of thousands of tons, almost overnight.”

The technology of incorporating waste plastic into paving materials is likely to take a long time to evolve. While widely in use in India, it is still in its nascent stages in other countries. However, given that only 9 percent of the 350 million tons of plastic that humans produce each year is recycled, advocates see the technology as one of many strategies that can help humans quit the habit of blindly sending waste downstream and adopt the practices essential for a circular economy: reduce, reuse, recycle.

“The beauty of roads is that there are lots and lots of them,” said Greg White, a paving engineer at Australia’s University of the Sunshine Coast. Four companies have so far constructed hundreds of miles of plastic roads in Australia, “primarily smaller local roads,” he noted. “That’s mainly because the local councils are far more willing to try things that are viewed as sustainable, as opposed to government departments that oversee big highways.” Added White, who has studied products from the Scottish company MacRebur, a leading manufacturer of plastic paving materials, “For those properties we can test, there’s absolutely no doubt that if you put the right plastic in the asphalt, you can improve the properties of the surface.”

What’s missing, he and others caution, are data on how well plastic roads age and endure over time, since in most countries the technology has been in use for less than seven years.
      
    Workers lay down roadway made from plastic waste in Agartala, India, in January.  Xinhua/Stringer via Getty Images    
While different companies are pursuing different approaches, the general idea is that waste plastic is melted and mixed with other ingredients for making road asphalt. Ordinarily, asphalt is composed of 90 to 95 percent aggregate — whether gravel, sand, or limestone — and 5 to 10 percent bitumen, the black gooey substance extracted from crude oil that binds the aggregate together. When contractors add waste plastics — which can serve as an even stronger binding agent than bitumen — they often replace just 4 to 10 percent of the bitumen, though some methods call for much more. Plastic roads, therefore, are not solid ribbons of plastic — far from it.

Research suggests that “using waste plastic in road construction helps to improve substantially the stability, strength, fatigue life, and other desirable properties of bituminous mixes, leading to improved longevity and pavement performance,” Michael Burrow, an engineer at the University of Birmingham and senior author of a global study of the technology, said in an email. “Albeit, it may be too early for many of the reported applications to show premature failure.”

According to Toby McCartney, cofounder and CEO of MacRebur, using waste plastics in road paving can absorb a significant volume of discarded plastic. “Of the waste plastics that are a problem for municipalities, we could use about 40 percent of it, if we got every road containing waste plastic,” said McCartney. “At the moment, we’re lobbying to try to get waste plastics included within the standards. Until that happens, it’s on a smaller scale than we would like it to be.” According to the company’s website, every ton of MacRebur mix contains the equivalent of 80,000 plastic bottles; every kilometer of road paved with its product contains the weight of nearly 750,000 plastic bags.

MacRebur’s plastic material is crumbed down to the size of rice grains, bagged, and sold to construction and asphalt companies globally. Since MacRebur’s launch in 2016, its materials have gone into hundreds of miles of roads, paths, driveways and parking lots in Turkey, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. In the U.S., the company is establishing a presence on both coasts, with a factory planned for Tampa, Florida, and manufacturing agreements in California.
  The processing of petroleum-based asphalt is responsible for sizable greenhouse gas emissions each year.
 
Pursuing a different approach, PlasticRoad in the Netherlands avoids traditional asphalt altogether. In 2018, the company completed a 100-foot pilot project in Zwolle, billed as the world’s first recycled plastic bike path. A second one followed in Giethoorn. Cheap to produce and easy to install, these paths are built with hollow modules made of single-use discarded plastics. In Ghana, Nelplast mixes shredded plastic waste with sand and molds the mixture into pavement blocks.
  Piling Up: How China’s ban on importing waste has stalled global recycling. Read more.  
In India, where 50 percent of the country’s roads were unpaved only a few years ago, as many as 14,000 miles of new roads have been installed since India’s Minister for Road Transport made it mandatory, in 2016, to add waste plastic into bituminous roads. India’s plastic road technology grew out of experimentation done in 2001 by R. Vasudevan, a chemistry professor at the Thiagarajar College of Engineering in Madurai. Recognizing the similarities between plastic and bitumen, both derived from petroleum, he mixed shredded plastic with gravel, then bitumen, and saw a good bonding effect. Vasudevan’s method reportedly employs two types of plastic: LDPE, or low-density polyethylene used in plastic bags, and PET, polyethylene terephthalate, used in soda bottles. MacRebur’s McCartney recalls being in India in 2016 and noticing people repairing potholes by plugging them with plastic bags and lighting them on fire. It gave him the idea behind MacRebur.

How environmentally friendly are plastic roads? One concern is that heating plastic for making asphalt can create carbon emissions, thus negating any emissions savings from using less bitumen. Vasudevan says that for his own method, it’s only necessary to heat plastic to 170 degrees Celsius (338 degrees Fahrenheit), which is well within a safe range. “Plastics, as they’re heated, go from solid to liquid to gas, and it’s only above 270 degrees C, when they’re at their gassiest, that they release gases,” explained Troutman, who is also an environmental scientist. McCartney calculates that for every ton of bitumen left out of asphalt, as much as a ton in CO2 emissions is saved, since less petroleum is heated for bitumen’s extraction. The processing of petroleum-based asphalt is responsible for sizable greenhouse gas emissions each year.
      
    Asphalt with the additive TonerPlas, made from mixed soft plastics, is used to resurface a roadway in Fremantle, Western Australia, in 2020. Courtesy of Close the Loop    
Another concern about plastic roads is that they will shed microplastics. No one has yet reported that this has occurred, and those interviewed for this article say they don’t see microplastics as a problem. “Road material is relatively inert, a solid block of asphalt,” noted Troutman. “In fact, the largest source of microplastics on the planet is abrasion of tires.”

Last summer, a pilot project in California drove home just how much rigorous testing has to occur before a road, if paved with a novel material like plastic, is deemed drivable and safe, especially a major highway driven over by big rigs with heavy loads. Highway 162 in Oroville was in the headlines last August when Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, working with TechniSoil Industrial, which supplied the liquified plastic, paved a 1,000-foot test strip. It was Caltrans’ first time using this new approach. “I hate plastic,” said Tom Pyle, who heads Caltrans’ Office of Asphalt Pavement Program. “I won’t even drink out of a plastic bottle — and if there’s a way of using waste plastic to make a road last longer, let’s do it.”

Their machines went out, ground up the top layer of old road, turned it to gravel, mixed in PET from recycled soda bottles — which has the consistency of “Gorilla Glue,” Pyle noted — and lay the mixture back down. No extra gravel or bitumen was used. Later, an engineer checking the job sent word that the new surface “moved” and felt unsafe. Caltrans ended up replacing it with traditional asphalt. “That was our first trial section for plastic,” said Pyle. “We didn’t want any accident for any reason to taint the goal of building a plastic road.”

Far from being deterred, Caltrans likely will install another test section in Oroville next spring. Pyle said that they will use new construction methods and aim for “higher strength.” “We don’t yet know how thick this material needs to be to carry thousands of trucks a day,” he said.
  The Plastics Pipeline: A surge of new production is on the way. Read more.  
Troutman views plastic roads as “a promising advance,” especially in a country like Ghana with a backlog of road projects. And yet, with the looming prospect that by 2050 the world will produce over three times as much plastic waste as it ever has, she stresses the importance of Ghana’s curtailing all unnecessary use of new plastics. “That’s the first step,” she noted. “If we keep pumping out more and more plastic, we’ll never be able to manage it in a sustainable way.”
        

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In an innovative approach many Ghanaian drivers would never notice; the asphalt under them contains a slurry of used plastics — shredded and melted bags, bottles, and snack wraps — that otherwise were destined for a landfill. The recovered plastic is used as a replacement for the crude oil binder found in most concrete roads and is evidenced to have a longer working lifespan than its crude oil counterpart.