Tony Breton, MSC, MCIWM, and David Newman, FCIWM, explore why the circular economy is so enticing, yet difficult to achieve, and ask if the sector is deluding itself.
Several peer-reviewed academic papers offer a view as to the failure of circular economy models to take root, but it would seem nobody takes heed of them, despite their arguments reflecting reality.
One paper from Hervé Corvellec, Alison F. Stowell, and Nils Johansson is brutally clear in its assessment. The paper argues that the circular economy faces structural obstacles to its implementation.
It also claims that the circular economy is based on an ‘ideological agenda’ dominated by technical and economic accounts, which brings uncertain contributions to sustainability and depoliticises sustainable growth.
There are several key themes that run through the academic research on the subject. The first is that the circular economy forgets entropy. Many materials deteriorate or are destroyed during usage and cannot be recovered. So new materials are needed.
Secondly, recycling and recovering materials in any case requires new materials to ensure quality – paper and plastics are both prime examples.
Thirdly, that materials often remain in “stock” and cannot be returned into the economy. Buildings are the obvious example, but even consumer items we keep which are not returned to the economy.
Proponents of the circular economy tend to overlook these critiques, weakening their argument and therefore failing to identify the solutions needed if indeed circularity is the objective.
We should also note the issue of toxicity. When we return toxic products to the economy, we return the toxins too.
In the case of plastics, these could be flame retardants, additives such as softeners, and colourants, many of which are defined as potentially carcinogenic. Do we really want these to be reused or recycled?
A brighter future is possible
None of this is to deny that the circular economy transition is happening. We have been returning materials to the economy for centuries, from paper and glass to metals. There is a huge circular economy ongoing involving these materials worldwide.
Indeed, a peer-reviewed paper from Julian Kirchherr and Kris Hartley in June 2025 cautions against excessive pessimism around the circular economy.
The paper claims that incremental progress is being made – not the type of transformative paradigm change we expected twenty years ago – but progress nonetheless, as measured by national policies, scientific papers, business models and start-ups.
It is clear, however, even from the optimistic paper of Kirchherr and Hartley, that the economic models needed for the transition rarely exist at sufficient scale to make an impact, and this is the primary reason for the circular economy failing.
Recovering and recycling or reusing materials often costs much more than simply using virgin materials. Nor do the market prices of materials indicate shortages, an often-used argument in favour of CE models. Recycling also often does not guarantee the same quality.
In plastics, this is the case. In clothing or electronic goods, repairing will usually not be worthwhile – older readers will recall taking their TV or stereo to be repaired at a local shop, which are now almost totally extinct.
So in order to make repairing, reusing, recycling the norm, we need policies which penalise virgin materials with taxes and incentivise re-used materials, fiscally and through obligations. Or, alternatively, fiscal policies which actively encourage circularity.
To date, these are rare, and they run contrary to the whole global economic model based on take, make, throw, and next year, consume even more. Nor do circular economy models take into account the growing middle classes in economically developing countries, who are beginning to emulate Western society by consuming and accumulating more and more.
The problem with the waste industry
Closer to home, and to our industry, we feel there is another major impediment to circular economy development – the waste industry itself.
While we all talk about the circular economy, recycling, recovery, and waste as a resource, the truth is far different. Company websites are very careful to ensure their message is about ‘sustainability’ whilst their business model is almost totally ‘linear’.
The industry contains an inherently contradictory element: it is a public service, but, especially where privatised as in the UK, it privileges shareholder value over public good.
Therefore, it will always undertake actions, investments and services in the name of profitability; it will only do otherwise when legally compelled.
Today, when we hear waste companies talking about something that is ‘investible’, they are primarily referring to incineration facilities. Hardly any of the major companies are investing similar amounts in recycling. In fact, we could not find evidence of major recycling investments being made today in the UK.
The privatised UK waste industry, in the hands of a few major players, privileges incineration because it is the most profitable model. The United Kingdom Without Incineration Network (UKWIN) organisation maintains that as incineration has increased, recycling has declined.
Incineration cannot in any way be described as part of the ‘circular economy’ or ‘sustainable’. It is designed to block, or at the very least delay as long as possible, any form of ‘transition’ while generating profits and shareholder returns.
Are we being naive?
Of course, the circular economy is much more than mere recycling. It starts with design – a product’s design decides whether it can be repaired or reused at its end-of-life.
But, as we all know from experience, repairability is still rare. Remember the ‘sharing’ model? Few really provide economic returns. Service-based systems lose hands down every day to consumption-driven systems.
Business-as-usual operators are strong supporters of policy avoidance through voluntary agreements, and we are saddened to see worthy colleagues in WRAP employed to run these roundtables and PR campaigns that are having little impact.
So are we being naive? Indeed, we are. The circular economy has become a catchphrase taken on by economic interests – in the waste industry, read incinerator operators – to disguise the real business model: one in which collecting, sorting, and re-using or recycling waste is merely what they are obliged to do when forced by legal obligations.
The privatised waste industry in the UK actively lobbies against increasing recycling. For example, their trade association, the Environmental Services Association (ESA), have opposed the separate collection of food waste, preferring this waste stream to be incinerated.
Incinerating food waste is a win-win for the waste industry, as they also obtain carbon credits from burning ‘biogenic’ waste and will thus reduce their carbon tax burden if (as mooted) incinerators are subjected to that from 2027.
But food waste is also needed to produce biogas, compost, and chemicals. Instead, the waste sector profits from CO2 emissions and resource destruction. Believing that this is going to change without major legislative measures is indeed very naïve.
To break this loop, policymakers must be bold and act immediately. Nothing proposed by successive English Governments to date will change the paradigm in which it is most profitable to destroy resources rather than to recover them within economic cycles. Government policy is ipso facto linear.
We require several measures
We need a French-style law prohibiting built-in obsolescence and obliging repairability at the manufacturer’s expense.
The incineration of biogenic wastes should be subjected to the same carbon tax as any waste. The atmosphere doesn’t distinguish between one form of carbon and another. There should also be a total moratorium on new incinerator capacity.
Mandated targets with penalties on local authorities and their privatised operators need to be laid down for recycling. There are no localised targets now for packaging, even with extended producer responsibility (EPR) and the UK’s deposit return scheme (DRS) coming, nor are there penalties.
Whilst we have an obligation to offer food waste collections, there are no collection and treatment targets for biowaste at all; yet we have rapidly declining organic carbon in soils, which composting can partially resolve. We need a separate collection target with a destination for biogas and composting for food waste immediately, before it all ends up incinerated.
In the absence of a comprehensive Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, the focus on carbon must be more nuanced. It must better account for all primary resources, including nutrients.
EPR and DRS should be implemented across the board on products entering consumer markets. It is amazing we have no EPR/DRS systems for products such as tyres in the UK, whilst many EU nations have had them for decades (in those decades we have just talked, talked, talked) – oils, batteries, electronics, furniture, clothing, are all good candidates.
Certain activities should be VAT exempt, such as repair shops. VAT was already paid on the original product; why subject the same product to a second VAT?
Market pull for low-carbon, renewable carbon, and recycled content products should be created with targets. France just announced such rules this September. For example, the percentage of biobased and/or recycled content in new clothes, plastics, and metal and glass packaging. Products that don’t meet the targets should be subjected to penalising taxation through EPR. WRAP should also receive a revised mandate for market generation and leave the voluntary pact talking shops to industry groups.
Export of most wastes, excluding paper, glass and metals, should be immediately prohibited to drive reuse and recycling at home, protecting low-income economies from our rubbish.
What needs to happen next?
To modify the linear economy requires radical action, which lays down targets for waste recovery and penalties for non-compliance, changes the fiscal system (including carbon taxes) to recognise circularity, disincentivises burning of waste, obliges EPR and DRSs across the board and creates marketplaces through mandated percentages of recycled and biobased materials in new products, imported or home-made.
We can, of course, decide to keep talking, but if so, we have to admit we are not serious. We might waste another twenty years convincing ourselves we are making progress. We are not.