Recycling and the Circular Economy

What is Recycling and the Circular Economy?

Within Earth & Environmental Science, which covers our planet, its resources and ecosystems, and how people can protect the environment, this topic explains Recycling and the Circular Economy. Earth and environment topics show how the planet’s systems shape landscapes, climate and life, with models that make these processes visible.

Check that you can explain Recycling and the Circular Economy in your own words and give one example from everyday life. If you can do that, you have understood the core idea.

Understanding Recycling and the Circular Economy helps you explain the environment around you and weigh up how people can protect it.

Recycling and the Circular Economy in detail

Recycling converts waste into new materials, saving raw materials and energy and reducing landfill and pollution: recycling aluminium saves about 95% of the energy needed to make it from ore. Common recycled materials are paper, glass, metals, some plastics and organic waste (composting).

A circular economy goes further, aiming to keep resources in use as long as possible by designing out waste, repairing, reusing, remanufacturing and recycling, in contrast to the "take-make-dispose" linear economy. It creates jobs and reduces environmental impact, but needs product design, infrastructure and consumer behaviour to change. Clean sorting helps recycling.

How the interactive helps you understand Recycling and the Circular Economy

Watch the cycle in the interactive. Use any sliders or buttons it offers to change the values and see how the cycle responds.

Before you change anything, predict the result. Then change one value at a time and check whether your prediction was right. This is a quick way to build a correct mental model of Recycling and the Circular Economy.

Real-life uses and examples

• Discuss how human activity changes Recycling and the Circular Economy, using a named example.
• Explain how Recycling and the Circular Economy affects the landscape or climate near you.
• Link Recycling and the Circular Economy to a real environmental problem and a possible solution.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Presenting one cause as the only cause of an environmental change.
• Describing a process without the timescale it works over.
• Learning the definition without testing it. Use the quiz and the interactive to check that you can apply the idea.