ABSTRACT
This chapter pulls together the preceding four chapters to illustrate how we consume natural resources and create unwanted materials, how these materials are managed through collection and treatment to produce secondary raw materials, energy and atmospheric pollutants. The current unacceptable model of linear consumption is then presented, together with the preferrable, theoretical model of circular consumption. But for this to happen, producers must in future design products and packaging to be suitable for circular consumption and the infrastructure necessary to deliver circular consumption needs to be put in place. Models for how the collection and treatment of products and packaging could be modified to deliver circular consumption are presented, including the role of retailers with regard to product take-back and the need to create two new industries for unwanted products: a much-enhanced repair industry and a new dismantling industry. It is then recognised that no circular model will capture and treat 100% of unwanted materials and that there will always be a requirement for some virgin raw materials to top-up the circular process.
