Circular Economy in Africa. What need to be done for it to be a success.
“When you have the right policies money will come. When you have right policies you’ll have things work,” Dr Antony Nyong, Director Climate Change and Green Growth, AFDB.
The concept of ‘circular economy’ (CE) is gaining momentum and first becoming a new model for resilient growth.
CE is one in where products and materials are recycled, repaired and reused rather than thrown away, and in which waste from one industrial process becomes a treasured input into another. Crafting and augmenting resource ‘loops’ along value chains could help meet the material needs of growing populations through radically lower per capita primary resource use rates.
If you keenly look at the EU’s 2050 Long-Term Strategy to achieve a climate-neutral Europe and of China’s five-year plans, CE is now a core component. Japan tabled the CE as a priority for the 2019 G20 summit. In Africa, Kenya launched a plan to sustainably manage plastic waste. Dubbed Kenya Plastic Action Plan, the private sector-led Policy and Action Plan under the Kenya Association of Manufacturer (KAM) seeks to enable a circular economy for the environmentally sustainable use and recycling of plastics in Kenya.
The main premise of the CE is to move from a linear “take-make-consume-discard” design to a closed loop where materials are repeatedly reused and recycled. Transitioning to a circular economy requires the integration of different stages in the life cycle. One example would be designing products from the outset for easy recyclability.
What does it mean for Africa and other developing world? Would it work and if it does, what is the loopholes Africa need to seal for CE to be a reality?
Inadequate devotion has been paid to CE pathways in Africa, despite policy progress and significant innovation. Structural and political conditions, and the rapid pace of growth and industrial development, will require different solutions to those adopted in Africa. I suggest that country governments in Africa need to adopt ambitious strategies for more resource-efficient and circular patterns of industrial growth.
Again, African countries should improve the recycling technology that can maintain quality and purity so that product manufacturers are willing to use recycled plastics. Our current technology not good enough.
Africa needs to adopt a correct business model. Companies should also design products for circularity. To achieve all these, stakeholders in the plastic industry; I mean companies, consumers, investors, governments and civil society each offering unique financial, intellectual and operational assets that can be strategically deployed to solve the big problem.
With this in mind, we should be careful about placing too much trust in the idea of CE as a solution to every facet of the plastic crisis. From a critical perspective, CE might provide an excuse for polluters to introduce low-effort recycling programs that meet a conservative minimum standard and present these as systemic changes.
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