Now that you know what recycling is, let’s see how it works in real terms. We will now suggest a course of action for you. First, we’ll look at how to promote better recycling.
Recycling is not very efficient today, often because the products were not designed from the start to be recycled at the end of their life. This is a major point. Therefore, organizations must conduct several strategies upstream.
First, plan for recycling from the product design stage onwards… To do this, you have to make sure that they can be easily disassembled and that they are composed of recyclable materials: either monomaterials or materials that can be easily separated at the time of recycling. This is one of the goals of eco-design. But it is also necessary to limit the use of additives and substances that degrade the quality of materials.
Look at this bottle of tomato sauce, whose-name-we-won’t-say-but-which- makes-you-want-to-eat-french-fries. The primary packaging of this bottle is red plastic. When recycling, it may be difficult to remove the dye from the plastic: it may remain red.
This limits its future uses considerably… Now, let’s take this product. It’s the same, just a different brand, and I still want fries… Except that this time, the red color comes from the sauce, since the plastic is transparent! This leaves more possibilities for reuse after recycling!
Tip #2: Provide opportunities for suppliers of recycled materials. How? By using them as much as possible in your products!
Let your suppliers know that you are ready to buy from them! It will get them going. But for this strategy to be viable, you have to think LONG TERM.
Your suppliers must be sure that you will not change your mind overnight. And the best way to do this is to engage with them in a long-term partnership. How?
Change your purchasing logic: develop contracts that secure the development of recycling channels. Another idea: co-design materials that meet YOUR specific needs with your suppliers. And what does this mean in practice?
Let’s ask a specialist: Alexandre Fernbach. Hello, Alexandre. You are the French Director of Cyrkl, a startup that helps manufacturers transform their waste into resources.
So Alexandre, what do you say to the companies who come to see you? The first thing, the first advice we give them, is to realize the value of their waste, the value of their material. There are two cases.
The first one is where the waste is quite pure and easy to use again. This was the case with one of our clients, Cofola, which produces an energy drink from plants and citrus fruits. We went to one of its site and we realized that this waste was not well recycled, and there was margin to improve.
This margin, among other things, was to allow Cofola to sell this pulp to another food manufacturer to flavor cereal energy bars, which was a great success in the region. And in the case of impure waste, when it’s more complicated, how does it work? In the case of impure waste… for example, mixed waste that is a little more complex to recover, we had this case with one of our customers, who manufactures furniture.
This customer produced waste from sawdust, so wood dust mixed with plastic… This mixture is extremely difficult to recycle… Our work with this customer allowed us to rethink the production line to isolate the sawdust from the plastic in order to recycle this waste. It’s even two types of waste. The sawdust was, in the end, purified and used as fertilizer in nearby agricultural fields, after some processing steps.
This shows one main thing, that it is of interest to eco-design your product. But it is also fundamental to eco-design your production chain in order to make the best use of production waste. Thank you very much, Alexandre!
More globally, the challenges for the recycling industry are numerous. At the same time, we need to increase the proportion of waste collected, reduce collection costs, and structure channels, as well as improve sorting and information on recycled materials to reassure buyers about their quality… Wow, that’s a lot! … So yes, it has to be said… It’s not all up to the companies.
The role of public authorities is essential, to help structure, encourage, standardize, and regulate. This is a very important point. Finally, there is another major objective, which is essential: Reduce the disposable economy.
Even if recycling were to improve greatly in the future, it could not make our economy sustainable by itself. To take the example of plastic waste, only 9% is currently recycled on a global scale. The remaining 91% are therefore buried, incinerated, or end up in nature and the oceans.
These are the orders of magnitude to know. Many experts believe recycling is too limited to be able to reverse the trend on its own. Therefore, we have to act on these quantities FROM THE START, by reducing the consumption of materials and the production of disposable goods.
Disposable goods are single-use products… like food packaging or those disposable razors… And the products not designed for a long enough lifespan, because they are not durable enough. The good news is there is no shortage of solutions for action to reduce the production of disposable goods. Extending life span by acting on usage, as we have seen.
But also encouraging deposit systems. Or reuse of packaging. Etc.
, etc. You’ve got it: to make our economy more circular, we need, of course, to act on ALL the opportunities. Well, we are done going through this big recycling loop.
I hope this has inspired you.
