Circular economy - Key for the change of natural resource from scarce to abundance

Abstract

As per world economic forum and UN’s world population prospects, every year, the world’s population is getting increased by 83 million more people, with this increasing population the usage of some of the available abundant natural resource has increased which may lead to scarcity of these resources. The world was using a traditional economic model based on a ‘take-make-consume-throw away’ approach of resources, it relays on cheap and easily available resources and starts producing goods, uses it and finally destroys it or dump it as a huge waste. So the world has to shift the gear to circular and sharing economy models. On a small scale, many companies are already working on the problems of resource usage efficiency by developing new technologies, such as those underlying the so-called sharing economy. Car sharing, and bike sharing for example. The circular economy is the process of not buying the goods but using the services and performance of the goods than owning it. This is the model where the manufacturers or the retailers are the owners of the goods and products used by us. The maintenance and repairs will be handled by the manufacturer which is also a part of the deal. In the recent years, the circular economy has gained a greater momentum in all parts of the world like corporate, governments, non-profit organizations and industry associations. The Circular economy will act as an innovative national level developmental strategy with a long-term vision for the future of a well-sustained world by increasing the abundance of the available natural resources. Yet the circular economy has a setback in its model; it also needs certain resource and energy for the process of recycling which is comparatively less. The major question will be whether the energy required for recycling is always lower than reproducing the product itself.