Welcome to The Circular People, where we celebrate circular business ideas being tested all over the world! Circular means creating less waste, and resources being used to optimize circularity through reuse, upcycling, repair and recycling only as a last resort.


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Posts

  • COMPOSTIFY

    COMPOSTIFY

    This company develops home-compostable alternatives that enrich the soil to traditional plant containers that tend to be made from virgin plastic

  • GOB

    GOB

    This company produces compostable ear plugs from mycelium, offering an alternative to traditional foam or plastic earplugs

  • MOLG

    MOLG

    This company enables circular manufacturing by using robotics, design tools, and material tracking to disassemble electronics and keep their components and materials in continuous reuse

  • HAPPE EARTH

    HAPPE EARTH

    The circle of it: This company replaces traditional disposable personal protective equipment (PPE) with medically approved compostable alternatives and offering a circular waste management system

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Circular Economy Principles

What is the Circular Economy?

A Circular Economy is one that closely mimics the life-cycle of resources in nature: nothing is created and nothing is destroyed and resources go back into the earth and can be regenerated in some form or the other. In our current “linear” economy, resources are taken from the Earth, products are made from them, and eventually thrown away as waste- there is no end-of–life design for most materials, and most materials end up in a landfill and have no way of being used ever again.

In a circular economy, products and services would be designed taking into account the full life-cycle of the materials used by that product or service such that waste would be eliminated or at least minimized. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a UK-based non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the transition to a Circular Economy since 2010, the circular economy is based on three principles, driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature.

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“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”

— Native American Proverb

Let’s work together.