Take a look at this number: 2,120,000,000. Got it? Do you know what that means!? It’s the total number of tons of trash we dump on the planet every year. How cute are we, humans, aren’t we?!?

In the absence of the largest LED panel in the world – which is located in Las Vegas, in the United States, and measures 110 meters high by 160 meters wide – to display yet another “remarkable achievement” of humanity, we’re going to write it in capital letters in this news so that the whole world has the exact dimension of how we are filling the planet up with filth without mercy or pity. Voilà: TWO BILLION AND ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY MILLION. Source: United Nations (UN). That’s a lot of zeros, isn’t it? A lot, “that´s crazy”. It’s hard even for that modern calculator on your smartphone to fit so many zeros on the right side of the full HD screen of the device you bought for an arm and a leg.

But look closely, if we had the power to fit together the cold cans we consume at the seaside or the stylized bottles, construction waste, fertilizers, pesticides, etc., etc., etc., that make up this great historical mark of humanity, we could go to the Moon and back. Let me explain.

Let’s put each of these tons in containers, nicely lined up, one in front of the other. Now, let’s divide each of these large boxes until they can hold these more than 2 billion tons. That’s it, now all we have to do is let our imagination run wild and we’ll soon reach the natural satellite of planet Earth, without needing a rocket that goes in reverse or Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11, who must be wondering from wherever he is what “contraption” this could be. “Could it be a container ladder?”! Right, Mr. Armstrong.

Cargo ship transports waste containers.

But there’s nothing bad that can’t get worse, right?!? Because the UN has projected that global waste generation is set to reach 3.8 BILLION tons per year by 2050. Oh, m-y-g-o-d-n-e-s-s!

Wait… There’s more. And this one is enough to make you hug anyone you meet, as if you have won the lottery.

Remember that cool jacket that cost almost a thousand dollars? Or the Italian leather shoes that easily cost over a thousand euros? Well, the UN categorically states that, surprisingly, 99% of the products people buy are thrown away within six months. That’s right: measly S-I-X months.

Woman in a landfill with shopping bags, standing on a pile of trash on the beach. Concept of consumerism versus pollution.

“The volume of waste in the world is enormous. Some of it is recycled, but much of it is simply discarded, causing health problems for people and their animals, and polluting our environment,” said Maimunah Sharif, head of the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat). “The amount of waste produced by individuals, communities, businesses, institutions, markets and factories continues to grow tremendously,” Sharif warned the press.

But hold your horses. . Even better. Let´s keep our cool. To reverse and try to find a solution to this problem, humanity has used two words that together give a completely different meaning than when they are separate: Circular Economy.

It’s a way of looking at what we produce, how we manufacture it and how we consume it that is very different from the conventional way. After all, ALMOST everyone has already realized that environmental challenges, such as the finite exploitation of natural resources and climate change, are on the agenda. And they require profound changes in production models. Even more so in the year of the 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 30), which will be held in Belém (PA) in November, and will bring discussions like these.

So, first of all, let’s understand “what they eat, how they live, where they are”… Excuse the joke.

What is a circular economy?

First, it’s not about “round and round”. Nor is it one of the tests in “Round Six”, the popular series shown on the Netflix streaming service. No, far from it.

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, one of the main global organizations promoting this model, the Circular Economy is a system in which materials never become waste and nature is regenerated. “In a circular economy, products and materials are kept in circulation through processes such as maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, recycling and composting. The circular economy addresses climate change and other global challenges, such as biodiversity loss, waste and pollution, by decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources”, explains the foundation. This means the opposite of the linear model, which dates back to the Industrial Revolution and is based on the idea of ​​“take-make-discard”.

Concept of circular economy.

Did you get it? Well… But let me tell you, the journey is long. Very long.

The Circularity Gap Report, a report released in 2020 by Circle Economy, a global entity for the circular economy, states that only 8.6% of the global economy is circular.

And where does Brazil stand in all this?

Data from the Brazilian Association of Public Cleaning and Special Waste Companies (Abrelpe) shows that the country recycles only 4% of its urban solid waste. In other words, we are blowing a very, very low whistle. But fortunately, there is also good news in this story in “Terra Brasilis”. Speaking specifically about the plastics sector, recycling of materials surpassed the 1-billion-ton mark in 2021, an increase of 14.3% compared to the previous year, according to a study by MaxiQuim, a consulting firm specializing in the sector. According to this survey, the amount recycled is equivalent to 22.1% of the total plastic produced in the country per year.

In the Brazilian paper and cardboard sector, the recycling rate is also doing very well, thanks for asking. It reaches an excellent 60%, with the reuse of more than 5.1 million tons per year.

Stack of paper and plastic waste collected for recycling.

Okay, okay, okay, sporadic sectors aside, the fact is that there is “money on the table” being left. Yes, because although you won’t find this information on any giant LED sign in Vegas, the fact is that there are opportunities. And good ones. And they are connected to innovation, venture capital funds, startups and this entire ecosystem.

Ramalho notes that the circular economy encompasses a wide range of activities, from the textile industry to the energy industry and the recycling of plastics and PET bottles, among others. And the portfolio, of course, seeks to navigate this variety, embracing initiatives that range from the fashion segment, such as Dress&Go, to those who transform waste into energy or high-performance materials, such as CHP Brasil.

Recycled PET

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in the city of Montauri, in Rio Grande do Sul, Lamiecco manufactures coatings made from PET bottles. With almost 100 direct employees, it produces sustainable interior coatings for different market segments, such as civil construction (doors, door frames, frames and wall coverings), and road equipment (trailers, buses and motorhomes). The monthly production of sustainable coatings is 500 tons.

The startup was recently one of three projects approved by FINEP, a public agency that finances innovation in Brazil, receiving more than BRL 8 million in funding.

The resources, says Figueiró, will be used to expand the Lamiecco Technology Center (CTL), with the acquisition of equipment to simulate the devices currently in the factory. According to the entrepreneur, CTL is the best-equipped laboratory in the coatings segment in Latin America.

Lamiecco Technology Center (CTL).

“With the investments we are making, we will soon be one of the largest in the world in the segment. The manufacturing capacity is being doubled by 2025, with the acquisition of new lines, investments in infrastructure and qualification of manufacturing processes. Today, we are leaders in the door and frame coatings segment in Latin America, supplying the largest national players and in countries such as Chile, Argentina and Peru”, he says.

Golden Waste

In the case of CHP Brasil, a company founded 14 years ago in Rio de Janeiro, the circular economy is achieved through biogas. The company offers equipment for generating energy from alternative and less polluting sources. The company was born from the development of its main product, the line of natural gas power generators, conceived in 2004, with support from FINEP.

Currently, CHP focuses on creating products that seek energy efficiency, resource savings and reduction in pollutant emissions. Production serves various market segments, from homes to large industries, and develops projects for companies that use intensive technology.

Circuler avec Élégance

Just as Uber monetizes the car parked in the garage and Airbnb turned the home into a money printer, Dress&Go realized that that little dress gathering dust in the closet had a lot of potential.

Founded in 2012 by Bárbara Almeida and Mariana Penazzo, Dress&Go is a pioneer in the rental and resale of clothing in Brazil, promoting circularity in the fashion market, one of the most polluting in the world. With more than 200 thousand products circulated, the company has already saved more than 1 million pounds of carbon, the equivalent of the work of approximately 35 thousand trees. Considering that one pound is almost half a kilo.

Bárbara Almeida and Mariana Penazzo, from Dress&Go.

Now, Dress&Go is taking a strategic step towards B2B, that is, business between companies, offering its expertise to large retail brands that want to enter the circular economy market, but do not have the necessary operational knowledge.

This transition allows the startup to expand its purpose of making retail more sustainable, helping brands to provide circular economy services directly to their customers.

But how does it work? “The customer sends the used item and receives a credit to buy a new item from the brand. Then, this used item stays with Dress&Go, and we resell it on several platforms,” she says. “So, for the brand, it is super interesting because this makes sustainability very tangible for it. Today, companies do several ESG things that the end customer cannot even see,” she adds.

That’s right. To look. To see. Everything is very visual in the 21st century. And if it is so, there is no point in being so, it is necessary to appear so, as the old and worn-out Roman saying about Caesar’s wife would say.

There is potential. There is demand. There is urgency. So, it is not a fashionable term or a preference of the progressive wing of humanity. The circular economy needs to gain scale and enter the global circuit once and for all, because it is necessary. To the extent that it can be a very effective “weapon” in the fight against unbridled production, which demands the extraction of more raw materials to satisfy unbridled consumption. It is not a hype or cheap philosophy; the future of humanity is at stake and requires action in the construction of solutions. Not today. But it has been asking for it since the day before yesterday!

“We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering”

Bill Gates

3 Questions for…

Eduardo Romeiro Filho

Professor at the Department of Production Engineering at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Federal University of Minas Gerais) (UFMG) and PhD in Production Engineering at Coppe – Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute of Graduate Studies and Engineering Research, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro).

(Photo: Courtesy)

1) What are the main challenges to implementing circular economy models in a country with the size and socioeconomic diversity of Brazil? And how can we overcome them?

The circular model assumes that production chains are structured in such a way that there is no “waste” or “final disposal” of the product, since the old product is reincorporated into the production processes. The aluminum can is an interesting example, since its recycling allows the material to be used as raw material for other cans, with equal efficiency and at a much lower energy (and economic) cost. With other materials, such as paper, recycling (when it exists) results in a less noble product, with characteristics different from the original, restricting its circularity. In addition, the existence of global production chains, especially for the production of electronics, makes the process of recovering materials very difficult, since it depends on specific and complex technologies for, for example, separating noble metals. This ends up imposing the existence of a very complex reverse logistics system, which is still unfeasible from a technical and economic point of view. In a country as large as Brazil and with large economic differences between regions, this problem becomes even more complicated.

2) How can companies and communities work together to promote circular economy practices that are economically and socially inclusive?

Undoubtedly, as long as technologies (including products, services and processes) are developed that incorporate circularity as a parameter, right from the design of new products. Products that are easily disassembled, use local materials (or that can be recycled and reused locally) and require less energy in their production are some examples. I believe that the big issue for the circularity of production processes lies in the design of new solutions that allow the reuse of resources – such as in a process of disassembling the product at the end of its useful life – to be carried out far from the origin of these products. The case of photovoltaic modules is interesting: a large part is produced in Asia and in a few years we will have a large quantity of modules to be discarded, all over the world. But these modules were not designed with a circular perspective in mind. What should we do? Create a reverse logistics system and send everything back to the manufacturer? Build “factories” to disassemble modules? Or design modules that, at the end of their useful life, can be disassembled or used for other purposes? How can resources, such as raw materials, from imported products be reused locally? These are still open questions.

3) You highlight the creation of “circular production and consumption cells” as a solution for reverse logistics in Brazil. Could you explain how these cells work in practice and which sectors could benefit most from this model?

I will give an example based on the previous answer. We are conducting research at UFMG looking for ways to incorporate end-of-life photovoltaic modules into the production processes, with an emphasis on the reuse of silicon. The experiments we have conducted in other countries require high technology and costs in large industrial plants. In a country like Brazil, transporting modules over long distances to these plants would significantly increase costs, in addition to generating more environmental impacts. We have tried to create simple disassembly systems that can be carried out in small communities that will be responsible for a first separation stage, reducing the volume and weight of the material to be separated with more sophisticated technology. In a similar way, it is possible to articulate circular processes, albeit in a limited way, in certain regions, based on local economic and social characteristics. This is an approach that some researchers call “systemic design,” when the resources and processes existing in a given territory are mapped and articulated in order to reduce waste and residue generation in the territory itself. Local production and consumption, in sectors where there is expertise and available resources. Brazil has different experiences with APLs (Local Production Arrangements) in the areas of food, furniture, footwear, etc. that could incorporate circularity as a planning parameter. It is an interesting principle that could be a gradual path towards the circular economy in Brazil.