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This collection was curated by the Circle Economy team from Knowledge Hub case studies for businesses, local and national governments around the world to find inspiration in practical examples of the circular economy. 

Visit the <a href="https://circle-economy.com" target="_blank">Circle Economy website</a> for more information and for more publications on the circular economy.

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Circle Economy

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Business case

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

Providing recreational and cultural services, including hotels, resorts, casinos, sport and fitness centers, stadiums, golf courses and amusement parks, restaurants, bars, pubs, fast-food or take-out facilities, as well as libraries and museums

Hospitality and Tourism

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

Use waste as a resource

Cycle strategies aim to cycle and reuse materials at their highest value: they maximise the volume of secondary materials re-entering the economy, ultimately minimising the need for virgin material inputs and therefore also narrowing flows. Of course, virgin materials will always be needed to a degree: all materials degrade and can’t be cycled infinitely, use energy, and require blending with virgin materials to maintain strength and functionality.

Cycle

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

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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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 In many parts of the world, clean drinking water, food, and sanitary facilities are not a given. Using space travel technology developed by the European Space Agency, the Semilla Sanitation Hub is now able to provide all three. After testing its urine filtration method at the 2018 edition of the Eurosonic Noorderslag festival, running a wastewater filtration test at DGTL and accelerating the process at the Into The Great Wide Open festival by teaming up with Nijhuis Industries, Semilla Sanitation ultimately completed the testing process at Eurosonic Noorderslag by also filtering blackwater. Semilla Sanitation is currently developing plans with Care Kenya to roll out the filtration technology in Kenya. The four pilots furthermore opened up a new market for Semilla Sanitation, as various festivals turned out to be open to making their sanitary facilities more sustainable. Over the past year, Semilla Sanitation’s CEO, Peter Scheer, also set up a water saving project in partnership with the organizers of the Zwarte Cross festival, reusing shower wastewater to flush the toilets. 

Innofest

Semilla Sanitations

Semilla Sanitations is a wastewater treatment toilet that allows to provide clean drinking water from wastewater. The technology was tested and scaled through four festivals.

Semilla Sanitations: Circular wastewater treatment toilets

Fiches finales Semilla.pdf

Ecocircular

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)

Providing water and sewage services, including water collection and distribution, water treatment systems and sewage treatment facilities

Water and Sewage

Producing building materials and finished and semi-finished building products for construction

Construction Materials and Products

Replacing freshwater use with rainwater, fogwater, seawater, etc.

Alternative water use

Research and facilitate new technological developments to aid the transition to a circular economy.

Research and Development

Impacts

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            At the current time, more than 2 billion people are living with the risk of reduced access to freshwater resources and by 2050, at least one in four people is likely to live in a country affected by chronic or recurring shortages of fresh water (un.org). SEMiLLA Sanitation tackles this issue!  Supply of drinking water units, sanitary facilities, and mobile waste water treatment systems. Output: clean water, good sanitation, compost & fertilizers.              Water is re-used for flushing water and irrigation water.            Costs, water usage, diseases, and pollution are all reduced.            Irrigation water, fertilizers, and compost are recovered.                      By combining container homes and controlled multilayer food production units, the modules respond to global emergencies. Providing the basic necessities for life, at a record time. The modules provide toilets, washing and showering facilities. Through biological or physical treatment, three wastewater streams can be converted into safe drinkable water, fertilizer, irrigation water and compost. Due flexible modules also we can provide biogas and electricity.           By 2030, everyone should have access to clean drinking water and hygienic sanitation. This is the crux of the UN’s sixth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). It is especially important since access to clean water is a prerequisite for achieving other SDGs, according to Geeta Rao Gupta, Executive Director of UNICEF. Semilla helps meet that goal, module by module.           Our demos are currently being shown all over the world! Join us on our adventure and receive our newsletter for more information.           Zaagmolenpad 45 7008 AG Doetinchem Netherlands
Postal address
Postbus 305 7000 AH Doetinchem Netherlands
KvK 68518080     owusu.debrah.collins@semillasanitationhubs.com     Parliamentary Press Corp. Accra, Ghana     esther.van.loon@semilla.io     P.O. Box 740 – 50300 MARAGOLI
Mbale town, Lunyerere road                  Facebook  Twitter  Instagram  Youtube             

Netherlands

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Sanitary wastewater treatment units, converting wastewater into clean water and fertilizers for food production. The solution is currently used for festivals and cultural events.&nbsp;Semilla Sanitation works in collaboration with universities as well as the European Space Agency in order to put apply closed loop Space exploration research on earth. (see summarizing case study below)