An item I regularly interact with is packaging, and more biodegradable packaging should be part of a circular economy. Packaging is something that the average American engages in, for example: online deliveries, in person shopping, soap and water bottles. Something specifically to minimize is the amount of plastics, as it’s overwhelmingly overused and within everything. Also, if it were to become part of a circular economy, it should be more accessible, because some zero waste stores are not in every city/neighborhood, and usually overpriced. Not to mention greenwashing sustainable products should be lessened.

Paper, an everyday material deeply integrated into our lives, currently operates on a very linear path- manufactured, used, and discarded. Envisioning a shift towards a curricular economy model for paper seems promising. By redesigning its composition and connected infrastructures, paper could embrace a closed-loop system. Firstly, altering the production process to incorporate refueled fibers or sustainable sources like agricultural residues could diminish reliance on virgin wood pulp. A redesign focusing on eco friendly materials and innovative production methods could foster a circular paper economy. Enhancing recycling technologies to efficiently collect and process used paper products becomes crucial. Instituting policies and infrastructures promoting paper recycling at both individual and industrial levels would help a lot. Overall , transitioning paper into a circular economy demands a holistic approach and seems very doable if we could get everyone on board and working towards the same goal which is nearly impossible it seems these days.

Something we do not see often in circular economies is electronics. Of course, we have donated electronics, or hand me downs from friends and family, and these tend to be older electronics, that do not work as effectively as when they were first bought. But when certain parts of electronics stop working, the other parts could still be working just fine. Even just parts like the outer shell, or screens, could be used again instead of having to make new ones. A lot of things, even outside of electronics, can be stripped for parts so that the functional parts of items can be used to make something new. A lot of things end up being thrown out even though they still have useful aspects of them, and being able to reuse those aspects could reduce a lot of waste and creation of new items.

An item I have talked a bit about before but still want to see in a circular economic system is Medicine bottles. Medicine bottles could easily enter a circular economic system as it is an item that is used daily by most people and when it is empty it loses value. You can’t ask for your medicine in the same bottle and pharmacies don’t request them back. These bottles could either be sanitized again or melted down to create them again. In the past medicine was in glass bottles which could also be an option due to it being generally chemically inert. It is frustrating to see a lack of a circular system for this item as the pharmaceutical industry produces 194 billion plastic pill bottles a year! There is no reason besides profit for this lack of sustainability especially as 90% of these bottles land in landfills. Due to the size of medicine bottles they are generally not recyclable as they will simply fall through the machine. The plastic they are made from is recyclable but the size makes them unable to be sorted at most recycling plants. We need a place to recycle and refine this plastic so we do not create more of it. With that in place pharmacies and stores can provide a drop off location for these bottles which can then be recycled into the same goods. A switch back to glass is also an option, but glass is heavy and can break easier which makes it less desirable. A company known as Cabinet Health is trying to create a new system for this issue by sending medicine in parcels that can then be emptied into glass bottles which are reused. This is an option but still creates waste and the bottles are expensive. The world just needs to be open to renovation and innovation to help create a safer world without the need for single use plastics that are thrown into landfills.

The circular economy of the plastic bags that run around in the world, changing hands so often. The mass production of these small bits of plastic are polluting the environment. Spreading awareness of reusing and not just throwing these plastic bags away is very important. Reduce, reuse, recycle. The societal mentality of single use objects is dangerous. Consistently people are using single use plastics for everything. Our day to day lives are filled with plastics like these plastic bags. Everytime we go to grocery stores we take home a couple of these plastic bags. It’s crazy to understand the mass quantities of just plastic bags that are in landfills. They are floating in our oceans and waterways. It makes me worry about the future of our planet. The irreversible destruction created by turning crude oil into plastic will haunt us forever. “Humans took substances from the Earth’s crust and concentrated, altered, and synthesized them into vast quantities of material that cannot safely be returned to soil.” (Braungart, McDonough) This quote explains exactly what the human race has done with the materials we found in front of eyes. 

In class we discussed how a circular economy would work. We read multiple articles on how it would work, then we discussed what we thought of the paper and the probability of this working. One of the concerns in the article were the advancement or lack of advancement due to the reuse of the same materials over and over again. With the invention of new materials and products how will we keep reusing the old ones. The writer shows that there is no clear solution to this. In class we also brought up politicians disregard for this idea and how they make decisions for this without the necessary research to see what the impact of it will be towards this topic.

I think that most of the food products that I eat are probably not really part of a circular economy, seeing as our current model of agriculture involves mass production of isolated types of crops, which end up taking more nutrients from the environment than we are able to give back. I don’t know much about this, but I’ve heard that things like food forests, and farming with a healthy variety of crops, could help to close in this gap of nutrient expenditure. Also, farming locally and in line with the seasonal cycles of when certain crops are meant to grow might help (crop rotation?).  I’ve also heard that mixing livestock with crops could help- because the livestock’s feed source would be right there, and it is less energy intensive to feed the livestock, and they can also help fertilize the soil. In any case, desire for profits and convenience is getting in the way of us enacting these things on a societal level at the moment, and we are degrading the environment with unsustainable agriculture- not in line with the circular economy 🙁 I think that things like capitalism’s inherent need for increased profits and production is definitely getting in the way of enacting a CE, as well as people’s desire for products and consumption (which is a result of capitalism- we are being subtly manipulated into believing this, but I do think that a lot of people still do). In order to be content with keeping the same amount of resources and products in circulation, our economic system would have to change. Maybe people’s desire for products and consumerist tendencies would die out naturally as a result of that.

This prompt made me think of phones, specifically how most phones are more easily replaced than they are to fix. Products like phones are always being upgraded and new products are always coming out. This fuels our consumerist society. I think that in a circular economy, products like phones would only have one model and there would be more accessible ways to fix them.  I also think that people could customize the functions of their phones based on what they would use them for. This way each phone would be able to be unique to each person and there would be less of a need for endless amounts of add-on products that are marketed to us presently. The phones could also be sent to the companies if someone changes how they use their phone, and if there is new software. I also think that the parts could be used to make other products if the phone is no longer being used. The parts could be recycled and used for other purposes. While this is just brainstorming an idea, I think that ideas like these can help us distance ourselves from the consumerist habits that we hold when it comes to products like these. 

From my personal collection of items I own, my books are not in a circular economy. I buy them and I keep them forever, I hardly share them, and I don’t give them away. One thing I do try and do is buy used books, so that I can participate in some sort of circular economy that way, and if I really trust a person like one of my best friends or like my mom I will let them be borrowed. I have never given a book to be kept that I bought for myself, I do buy books as presents and give those away often. I’m not sure what physical components would need to change about a book for me to be more circular in nature with them but I do know that a lot of social things would need to change. I don’t trust people with books because a lot of people in my life don’t respect them and treat them the same way I do. I often used to receive the books back damaged and I even had a person steal some from me. I would need to see a change in treatments of other people’s belongings and books as a whole from the people I am closest to. 

The other day a friend knocked on my door asking if I had a stapler. I immediately grabbed a mini teal one from my desk drawer. Upon handing it to them, I realized how infrequently I use the stapler myself. I have had the stapler since my 7th birthday and have never needed to refill it with staples. I am not sure how many staples came in it, but 11 years is certainly a long time to have something and not need to refill or replace it. I find it amusing that besides this time, I have no recollection of when I used it last, yet I still felt the urge to bring it here. One product that I use quite frequently and have been shared with others is scissors. Reflecting on my feelings during that time in comparison to the time of sharing the stapler is interesting. When the scissors were in the possession of another person, my anxiety surrounding the object rose. Even though I trusted the person and knew they would only have them for a short time, it was a drastic difference in how I felt about the situation in comparison to someone having my stapler. Another aspect that is interesting to examine within these circumstances is that the person who used the stapler had put too much paper in it, and it ended up getting stuck for 10 minutes, and it took 4 people to resolve the issue. However, even with this instance, I felt less anxious over that happening, than I did from just knowing that my scissors were not in my room, even with me having no need to be using them anytime soon. Therefore, this has helped me understand that trust in material exchange goes both ways. Trust is needed to believe and seek someone else who has the thing you need, and trust and belief in yourself to serve others’ needs even in small material ways. Recognizing this can help people work towards communal sharing of products and reduce the production and ownership of goods that one does not need regularly. In Monday’s class, we discussed the short life span of a hammer being used and yet the common ownership of one. Based on the obvious fact that everyone is a different person, some people’s most commonly used objects are maybe not the same as the people around them. I do think that is an incredibly beautiful thing and is a great way to encourage sharing of resources. However, the desire to possess things is very common in the U.S. I imagine this stems from this country’s colonial practices centering on the taking of resources and lands from Indigenous people. These ideas have also formed American Dream ideas of success such as owning a house to raise a family being considered a worthy milestone. Breaking down and unpacking these concepts can help us work towards a world of having innate value through one’s personhood rather than value being based on our possessions. Overall, this week’s readings have helped me unpack my relationship to my things, form a desire to live in a circular economy, and therefore consider how my internalized ideas of possessing things effects my personal steps needed to help share ideas of a circular economy.