Towards Zero Waste

Acknowledging how the nature of the stakeholders influences their resource management, the remaining chapters of this book were grouped per type of the main stakeholder (public and private sector and civil society) that promotes CE practices.

This chapter deals with the potentials and challenges – the strengths and weaknesses – of Mexico in moving towards a circular economy. In answering this question, the chapter does not look at reduction, reuse and recycling of waste in a narrow sense but approaches the topic from a wide and systemic perspective inspired by the concept of national innovation systems. The authors first provide some key data with respect to the current handling and management of waste in Mexico and then present in a conceptual way their systemic view on a circular economy. Subsequently they explore the potentials and challenges for Mexico, revising the following elements of their conceptual model: “market trends and conditions”; “competitiveness and productivity”; “the political and regulatory framework”; “education, training and knowledge transfer”; and “learning culture”. They finish off with some conclusions concerning the potentials and challenges of Mexico in moving towards a circular economy.

In this work we proposed to answer some questions related with solid waste management and circular economy. The research questions were: What is the connection between circular economy and solid waste sector? How can the circular economy be implemented and which are the necessary policies for waste recycling? Which are the environmental issues related with the waste management in Europe? What are the main problems and opportunities in solid waste management in Romania? Can it be achieved a medium- and long-term prognosis of solid waste generation? In this paper we also suggested strategic solutions for integrated waste management and policies for its improvement. We have discussed the zero waste to landfill target together with the public perception and participation in waste management sector. We have applied the life cycle assessment for environmental evaluation of the proposed waste management scenarios and the trend analysis for waste prognosis.

Market-based instruments, such as the cap-and-trade, have been widely used to address the increase of greenhouse gases (GHG). In line with other geographic regions, Mexico has seen the need to expand the options of market instruments to mitigate the effects of climate change. Simultaneously, there are important reasons to move towards a circular economy model. In this context, this research seeks to answer if it’s feasible to implement a cap-and-trade system in Mexico as part of its climate policy. That said, firstly, it analyses and assesses the cap-and-trade system in Mexico based upon its contextual environment, its potential of implementation and its economic and environmental benefits and costs. Secondly, it highlights the implications of considering circular economy models into a cap-and-trade instrument. Through the use of marginal abatement cost curves (MACC), it was found that the percentage of measures to reduce GHG with negative cost agglomerates 57% of all the measures, which could translate into a benefit for the economy as a whole by almost 1% of GDP by 2020. As part of the conclusions, we argued that MACC results prove partially that the cap-and-trade system is a feasible option to apply in Mexico. In addition, a cap-and-trade mechanism should show a strong carbon price signal felt by end users and therefore motivates the application of circular economy principles, which are related to the introduction of innovations to enable the closing of current materials and energy loops along the supply production chain.

This paper presents the operationalisation of stakeholders identity and salience theory (Mitchell RK, Agle BR, Wood, DT, Acad Manag Rev 22(4):853–886, 1997) with the purpose to classify the stakeholders involved in the household solid waste management in Cimahi City, West Java Province, Indonesia. This classification will benefit circularity of solid waste management strategies that involve diverse actors needing to collaborate. Several studies have been conducted to identify the stakeholders in solid waste management, but none has been carried out yet to classify their salience in the systematic approach described by Mitchell’s theory. Such classification aims to draw a line between the stakeholders who play a vital role in the household solid waste management process and those who have minor contributions towards the process. Hence, the research questions aligned to this aim are: (1) Who are the stakeholders of household solid waste management in Cimahi City? And (2) who are the most salient stakeholders of household solid waste management in Cimahi City? The research utilised a qualitative method approach. Data collection techniques contained in-depth interviews, non-participant observations and reading documentation. Triangulation was applied to validate the collected data. Even further, data was analysed by the Miles and Huberman model. The result of this research has identified stakeholders with important influence and impacts on the household solid waste management in Cimahi City. The identified stakeholders were classified into two categories: (1) formal sector (government, NGOs and private ones) and (2) informal sector (not officially registered waste collectors and recycling entities). The stakeholder salience for household solid waste management depends on their type of activities, which were reducing and handling. In the reducing activities, one of the “definitive” stakeholders affiliates to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Whilst for the handling activities, the “definitive” stakeholder comes from the municipality of Cimahi City. Understanding the identity and saliency of stakeholders will help develop household solid waste management strategies with circular economy principles.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Cuautlancingo, a local government of Puebla, México, manages circular economy (CE) activities related to urban solid wastes (USW). The final goal of those activities is to reduce potential sources of soil/water contamination and to preserve the environmental conditions. Due to the CE systematic approach, several stakeholders are required to integrate their efforts. Government and companies represent key stakeholders who can adopt the circular economy as a systematic thinking approach to make decisions accordantly. Hence, this paper was focused on trying to identify and describe the CE systematic approach in Cuautlancingo, as a case study. Three main points of attention were used for this analysis: (1) the wastes collection methods applied; (2) the type and conditions of waste management and (3) how does a circular economy perspective can influence other business or companies to recycle waste and generate more employment possibilities. The research methodology used was of qualitative nature. The main research method consisted of a questionnaire which was applied to staff members of the local government in Cuautlancingo. Aspects associated to the USW, such as generation, use and their treatment were the focus of the questionnaire. Some of the findings shed light on the poor CE implementation associated with USW management. However, some opportunities could also be identified, i.e. if the local government assumed the responsibility to organise and sell the recyclables, this would represent an additional income up to 366 USD per month. Consequently, it is perceived the need of redesigning the USW processes to retain the material value within the CE perspective.

Waste recycling helps to establish a circular loop of resource flow between production and consumption, achieving a certain symbiosis between the industrial and urban sector. Since more and more resources are accumulated in the urban sector, urban mining as form of waste recycling in a massive way becomes an outstanding way to achieve industrial and urban symbiosis. In 2010 China initiated a national urban mining pilot base (UMPB) programme with the objective of developing the recycling industry and relieving environmental and resource constrains. This study aims to provide policy review of the programme. We find that the UMPB programme was developed from past circular economy policies and attains legacy assurance from current laws and national plans. But this did not formulate a perfect governance context for its implementation. A multi-ministerial cross-management network led to policy conflicts, and recycling-oriented legislation remained absent. These became the main barriers for the good implementation of those urban mining pilots. Comparing with the eco-town programme in Japan, it shows that both programmes share some similarities of partial policy objectives but also show variety in the scope of urban symbiosis due to the different problems they focus on and the slightly different policy objectives under the different economic and social development phases.

This study aims to set future direction of sustainability pathway(s) to incorporate circular economy within Indonesian high education systems and to “reinvent” the university role whilst shaping future leaders. For this purpose, this study intended to develop the definition of circular sustainability high education. Some of the Indonesian universities have already adopted the sustainability principles, putting the circularity concept at the heart of their education system. Nevertheless, by comparing them with some of the international experiences, in specific those of the Dutch universities, it was expected to identify relevant opportunities for the Indonesian universities to enhance their contribution on the circular sustainability fields. In consequence, the approach of this study was to analyse the managerial practices in order to integrate circular economy at Dutch universities (e.g. Business Schools), which represented the analytical framework for the Indonesian case. In terms of the research question driving this work, it corresponded to: “What are those transferable Dutch practises of circular economy towards sustainability transition to Indonesian Business Schools in DKI Jakarta?” From the methodological viewpoint, this study presented an exploratory and comparative design. As result of this research, it was observed that, among the cases analysed, there is a large difference in the management approach, particularly on how the university leaders demonstrate their contribution to sustainability. This latter requires, consequently, a strategic and systemic approach to measure the circular sustainability through performance indicators to assess progress which are spread out across four criteria. Some of the conclusions showed that there is currently no fixed panacea on how to integrate the concept of circular sustainability high education into the universities culture. Even further, the result of this study could proffer a guide towards a shift in circular sustainability and be used for detailed further application to depict the stand for Indonesian Business Schools.

The food waste in landfill decomposes into contaminated run-off (leachate) and methane (CH₄), which is considered a relevant greenhouse gas. This causes environmental liabilities, energy losses and problems in the food system. Currently, organic waste volumes are increasing dramatically converting this into a serious concern in both developed and developing countries. Zero waste to landfill (ZWTL) is one of the most promising concepts for solving organic waste problems. ZWTL when integrated into business processes can lead to innovative ways to identify, prevent and reduce waste. In that sense, the circular economy (CE) has also been considered regularly as an approach to the more appropriate waste management as it considers the business strategy part of the zero waste system. This circularity would increase productivity throughout the food value chain. In that manner, retail stores are proven to be a major market-driven force in the food system. Hence, one retail store located in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City, part of Walmart-Mexico (Walmex), was selected to showcase a suitable strategy to tackle the food waste issue. Thus, this research aimed to explore how the organic waste management can be improved by combining CE business model and a ZWTL strategy. The findings of the combined framework (SOL4FoodWaste) showed that most of the food considered as waste can be recovered through different stages. Even further, 40% of the food waste management costs can be saved through three business actions associated to those recovery stages. The proposed SOL4FoodWaste framework intends to collect all the sustainable concepts that might potentially be implemented or resembled in other industries with similar food waste challenges.

The lack of environmental awareness in society, especially in developing countries, combined with inefficient waste handling systems, has caused millions of PET bottles to end up in landfills, losing their original value. In the worst cases, the bottles mishandled by consumers enter natural systems generating significant negative externalities such as the pollution of soil and water, with the possibility of reaching the oceans. In general, the plastic recycling industry in undeveloped economies is highly dependent on the participation of a broad social group known as scavengers, whose role is very valuable for the supply chain, although it is performed under very difficult conditions and usually operates as part of the informal economy. Maintaining the sustainability of the three actors involved in the industry—the environment, society and business—requires a different business model in which all actors must participate and produce a more inclusive added value. PetStar is a company that has designed and implemented a circular economy business model for PET bottles that is trying to achieve a dream for the recycling industry: to disengage the recycled bottle from virgin resources, avoiding the conversion of the packaging to waste, and operate a perennial cycle in the use of the packaging. The PetStar sustainable business model is presented, explaining how it works and how it creates a sustainable cycle that is economically feasible and competitive, environmentally resilient and socially shared among one of the poorest and most informal sectors, the scavenger and collector communities. This paper discusses a model of sustainable recycling that can be replicable in other developing countries where the same problem emerges, as well as how to generate a zero-waste circular value system that can be inclusive, clean, viable and capable of generating shared wealth for the community.

In this chapter the concepts of social life cycle assessment and combined social and environmental LCA were explored through the application of existing LCA methods to the global value chain of jeans. The social and environmental life cycle assessment (SELCA) method resulted from this explorative research that aims to contribute to the battery of impact assessment tools of products whose value chain scope is multinational (global). From a broader perspective, SELCA has a double-folded purpose to (i) identify opportunities for environmental and social improvement at any of the value chain phases of products, for remediation goals, and (ii) predict the environmental and social performance of different ways (scenarios) to produce the same product, using it as a product design tool. To simplify SELCA development, it was decided to use a single product (jeans) as a showcase from the global textile sector. In this showcase, four scenarios for jeans assembly were compared; three of them were defined under the circular economy principles by including recycled materials (cotton, PET and nylon 6) during the yarn production. During the application of the SELCA method, some new challenges were encountered related to inventory analysis, in particular during data acquisition for social inventories. This is later mainly due to the extensive list of key stakeholders for the showcase and the qualitative nature of social metrics. This list starts with cotton cultivators from different countries where regulations and codes of conduct seem to have contextualised interpretations and consequently different levels of implementation. In this regard, governmental intervention to instrument the transition towards suitable social/environmental performance along the global jeans value chain was also discussed in this chapter.

The urban solid waste (USW) in Mexico City is managed at the municipal level. This situation means several challenges: the 3-year municipal administration period clearly affects the continuity of their USW management plans and programmes, adding to the space shortage problem to properly landfill them. Even further, the technologically insufficient operation of landfills represented 16% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2016. Organic waste represented between 45% and 55% of the total USW. Therefore, grassroots initiatives were the focus of this research because some of them proved to reduce USW at the household level, because activities to turn the organic waste into compost by community members are relevant. This fits into the purposes of the circular economy and zero waste landfill. Local composting has an important potential to improve USW management: the goal of this paper was to identify the conditions necessary for those projects to be successful. Hence, our research question is as follows: Which are the conditions needed to facilitate the community-based compost production? To answer it, international cases were analysed to learn from the existing best practices. Two countries were used as reference: the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. A proper literature review was carried out to build the analytical framework to assess one specific case study in Mexico City: the composting plant Club de Golf Bellavista (CGB). Surveys and interviews were carried out in order to compile empirical data and information for further analysis. Among the most relevant findings, “social participation” came across as a relevant factor in this type of grassroots initiatives, particularly at the source generation of the USW. This was consistently mentioned through surveys responded by CGB stakeholders. Neighbours also had the opportunity to suggest different mechanisms that could convince other neighbours to engage in the separation phase of USW.

This chapter provides a reflective analysis of the contributions focusing on how the chapters contribute to circular economy in two main themes that will define the future of circular economy research: challenges and opportunities and effective collaboration with stakeholders. Lessons learned and commonalities are also discussed to finally draw some conclusions and recommendations to further elaborate the research agenda of this field.