29^th August and 5^th September, 2021; 12 noon-1pm  

• Circular economy is emerging as an economic model for its environment and economic benefits.
• Benefits of circular economy include reducing pressure on the environment, improving security of supply of raw material, increasing competitiveness, stimulating innovation, boosting economic growth and job creation.
• The 7 Rs of circular economy are Rethink, Reduce, Re-use, Repair, Refurbish, Recover and Recycle. These are backbone to minimize the waste and get wealth from waste. Waste is a misnomer. It is wealth and is full of recoverable resources. This fact is not recognised much. Waste is not waste for the ecosystem.
• There are several different types of waste: e-waste, biomedical waste, solid waste, household waste etc. Waste can lead to air and water pollution.
• Most of the waste is handled by the unorganised sector so its exact amount/quantity including the quantum of people involved is not known. Waste circular economy has been recognised in the last decade to bring waste into the mainstream economy.
• Resource exploitation increases pollution and waste generation. Optimum levels need to be judged carefully and cautious and conscious decision needs to be taken.
• Careful integrated planning can result in resource recovery, conservation of resources and can lead to sustainable development, which is the need of the hour.
• Circular economy is more focused towards five Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) : SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation for all), SDG 8 (Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all), SDG 11 (Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable), SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production) and SDG 13 (Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts).
• Half a trillion-dollar worth of economic value can be unlocked through circular economy business models in India by 2030 (FICCI).
• Examples of Circular Economy include use of sugar industry waste in paper industry, conversion of biodegradable wastes into manure/biogas etc. Valuable resource and material can be recovered from all waste products if approached in a scientific manner.
• Four processes are very important for circular economy: Circular supply chain (provide renewable energy or fully recyclable input materials in place of single life-cycle inputs), recovery and recycling, product life extension (by repairing, upgrading and reselling) and sharing platform.
• In linear economy, a product reaches end of life and ultimately becomes waste. Whereas, a circular value chain operates by employing reuse, sharing, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling to create a closed-loop system and minimising waste generation and pollution.
• There is no consensus yet on a set of central circular economy performance indicators applicable to organizations and individual products.
• More than 8 million tonnes of steel can be extracted from different categories of end-of-life vehicles in 2025, which represents a 2.7-billion-dollar opportunity.
• Household gadgets also have a huge potential for extraction of metals. Gold can be extracted from electronic waste. This is called urban mining from e-waste. There is ~$1bn of value that can be realized from the extraction of gold from e-waste in India.
• There is significant value realization potential from plastic dumped in landfills. Around 40% of plastic waste in India remains uncollected for recycling. If properly managed, this can create around 14 lakhs jobs and could potentially represent a $2bn opportunity.
• Three sectors have been identified: National initiative to set up a conducive ecosystem, material level and sector level action plan and proof of concepts, pilots and scale up. Many more sectoral action plans will come up for different sectors, including state level action plans.
• A vehicle scrapping policy was launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India in August this year to phase out unfit and polluting vehicles in an environment-friendly manner.
• Implementation is the problem; it requires collective effort from all stakeholders and not just from the Governments or the Regulatory Authorities.
• The way forward is optimisation in thinking, planning and policy as 5Ps play a major role: People, Policy, Planning, Population and Politics.
• There should be mechanisms in place to account for environmental damage, control of emissions and sustainable management of waste in imports and exports. International cooperation is required for transfer for low-cost technology.
• Niti Aayog has 11 focus areas on Circular Economy and Committees have been formed for these areas.
• A simple lifestyle itself caters to circular economy as we do not have a use and throw culture in India. There is a need to create public awareness and motivate them.

Participants

Dr Anil Kumar

Mr Vivek Kumar

Dr SK Gupta

Dr Dipankar Saha

Mr Pradeep Khandelwal

Dr Dwaraka Nath

Mr Neeraj Tyagi

Mr Ankit Sethi

Mr Ashish Jain

Dr Ravindra Kumar

Mr Vikas Singhal

Mr Virendar Gupta

Mr Varun Singhal

Mr Ira Gupta

Dr S Sharma