STORY / PUBLIC SOURCE RECORD
How the circular economy is changing business
- Published 9 March 2023; updated 21 September 2026; estimated reading time 6 minutes. The page frames circularity around reducing material use, reusing products, recycling materials and recovering value from waste, supported by renewable energy and systems thinking. It cites the Circularity Gap Report 2023: global circularity fell from 9.1% in 2018 to 8.6% in 2020 and 7.2% in 2023; these are dated global estimates.
- Reduce: Additive manufacturing/3D printing can build parts layer by layer and reduce machining waste. Norsk Titanium says its Rapid Plasma Deposition process halves material waste compared with conventional titanium processing; Fieldmade prints energy-sector spare parts on demand and on-site. The page also presents recycled-plastic Snøhetta/NCP S-1500 chairs and BRIGHT Products’ multipurpose solar lamps as ways to use less material per service.
- Reuse: Fashion resale/gifting platform Tise extends clothing use; Hayk’s peer-to-peer EV-sharing service enables owners to share cars with colleagues and neighbours.
- Recycle: The page says aluminium can be recycled repeatedly using about 5% of the energy of primary production and describes Norsk Hydro’s renewable-energy and recycled-aluminium practices. TOMRA helps run Norway’s deposit system; the article states 97% of cans and bottles are recycled. Norsk Gjenvinning produces recycled paper said to match virgin-paper quality.
- Recover: Examples include Marealis using discarded prawn shells for a supplement; Hias How2O wastewater treatment that recovers about half of phosphorus for fertiliser; Cambi thermal hydrolysis, which the page says can yield up to 50% more biogas than conventional digestion and produce pathogen-free biosolids; NORSEP extracting zinc/concrete materials from waste-to-energy ash; and Finnfjord using CO₂ by-products from ferrosilicon production to grow algae.
- The article presents these as examples across sectors of using waste as a resource, while noting they are incremental steps toward a circular economy. Related industry: Circular economy. No direct contact block is shown.