RP304 Cradle to Cradle

 RP304 Cradle to Cradle

Imagine flying into Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. After getting your passport stamped, you retrieve your suitcase from a luggage conveyor belt made of 99-percent recyclable materials. Once outside, you hop into a non-polluting electric taxi and ride to your hotel in the nearby Park 2020 complex. It looks like any other hotel, but it's not. The materials used to build it don't belong to its owners. They are simply being rented for as long as the hotel stays in business. If it ever closes, they will be reclaimed by their owners and used to construct new buildings. Any repairs to the hotel will be handled the same way.
These are just a few examples of a circular economy, in which use replaces consumption, and maximum effectiveness with minimal damage is the rule. The Netherlands is a world leader in this new way of doing business, but other countries are starting to catch up.
In a circular economy, resources are used for as long as possible and waste, if any, is minimized. That may just sound like recycling on a grand scale, but it goes a lot farther. Traditional recycling reduces the quality of materials, but circular economic practices maintain or even improve it. And they often do so by changing those materials completely.
Take the Shih An Farm in Kaohsiung, for example. It is home to 700,000 chickens, which produce a lot of eggs and an enormous amount of manure. While the eggs go to shops and restaurants, the manure goes straight to local largest biogas power plant, located right on the farm. There it is mixed with wastewater, which has been used to wash eggs. The resulting gas is stored in huge tanks and used to provide electricity for over 1,000 homes. If you live in that area, your television, refrigerator, and smartphone may literally be powered by poop!
By reusing the toxic wastes generated by manufacturing and reducing the need for fresh resources, circular economies offer a double benefit. By focusing on repair rather than replacement, they also challenge the grabbing consumer mentality of many people and corporations. Impressive advances have been made in technology; will the same be true of our attitudes?