As the name itself implies, the movement is driven by proponents of zero waste aiming and advocating to do away with waste entirely. And how can it possibly achieve that? Well, by introducing the concept of circularity.

The economy we live in today is largely linear. A company makes a product; consumers buy it, use it as long as they can or want to, and eventually discard it. Afterwards, the discarded product ends up in a landfill, and its life cycle is complete — now, all that’s left for it is to slowly decompose. In the meantime, consumers buy something new, and the whole process starts again.

This sort of approach is what we’re all used to, but it’s not sustainable in the long run. It leads to waste accumulation, fast resource consumption, and discarding materials that could still be useful. In other words, it’s detrimental to our planet.

Circularity is there to solve all these problems. It introduces new practices and strategies that should entirely eliminate waste. So, instead of throwing used up products away, we should repair, repurpose, and recycle them. By doing so, we can use them again, or at least create new materials for a different product.

To put it simply, single-use items and non-recyclable materials have no place in the circular economy and zero waste movement. Both consumers and product designers need to be aware of that and put their best effort into adhering to the principles of circularity.