Circularity is the new black!

Mining and extraction of raw materials is not only the focus of this issue of the ZKG magazine – it also is the beginning of almost all industrial value chains. Since man found out what to do with all those precious materials hidden in the crust of our earth, mining and extraction has made us wealthy in so many respects.

However, with a population of almost 8 billion people on earth and after more than 3 millenniums of ever intensifying extraction of precious material, we seem to be coming to a stage where we start questioning the linear value chain model which takes something from the earth’s crust, processes it further to a product and then disposes it off after its lifetime. We have come to understand that the resources are limited meanwhile – and that goes for resources in the classical sense like metal ores just as much as for the “to-be-disposed-into”-resources like waste dump sites and the atmosphere. Yes – the atmosphere! It is the biggest waste dump site for the leftovers of our linear industrial combustion-based way of life. And it can take no more CO₂ – unless we accept to generate massive migration, social unrest and more catastrophes of even worse effects.

That is why circularity is the new black! We need to understand how precious our resources are. We need to re-use them instead of linearly taking them from somewhere and the then dispose them off. We need to close the cycles. What has been proposed already many years ago for metals and glass, can also be done with the classical element of our human existence: carbon. Instead of emitting it into the atmosphere, we have to capture it and transform it into new products. Just be aware of it: you can buy recycled carbon products already today such as bottles for cosmetics and detergents. And even the carbon in the detergent itself can now be substituted with recycled carbon. Watch out for them and support these innovative and eco-friendly alternatives!

Innovatively Yours,

Matthias Mersmann