Circular economy : This is why companys are adopting strategies to integrate circularity

Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis finds that leading brand owners and original equipment manufacturers in the industry are adopting strategies to integrate sustainability and circularity into their business activities following mounting pressure from consumers and government bodies.

While nearly 370 million tonnes of plastics were consumed in 2019, overall plastics waste collection volumes were estimated to be around 45 to 50 percent of the total consumption. Additionally, only under a third of the plastic waste collected was recycled whereas two-thirds of the volume was either sent towards landfilling or incineration/energy recovery, resulting in a significant proportion of plastics remaining in the environment. Furthermore, overall plastic consumption is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of three to four percent over the next five years. The concept of a circular economy is, thus, gaining momentum globally.

In this study, Frost & Sullivan has identified eight individual themes—reuse, mechanical recycling, purification and depolymerization, feedstock recycling, upcycling, alternative feedstock, enabling technologies, and collaboration—used to categorize different strategies companies are implementing to create a more circular economy for plastics.

collaborative development of the circular flow of materials (loops) across end industries,” said Gautam Rashingkar, Chemicals, Materials and Nutrition Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “The industry needs both advanced recycling technologies as well as advanced technology-based solutions that improve the sorting, traceability, accountability, and transparency in the flow of materials across the value chain.”

Rashingkar added: “A swift transition to a circular economy entails the development of a system composed of a series of interlinked loops, the convergence of technologies, and continuous collaborative engagements that ensure reduction, reuse, regeneration, and recycling of plastics. Additionally, the successful development of a well-integrated circular economy in plastics depends, to a large extent, on the in-tandem functioning of initiatives across each of the themes, thereby generating sustainable economic and environmental value on the one hand and ecological balance by diverting waste away from incineration facilities and landfills on the other.”