Circular Economy Quotes
Sort by: Year | SourceCircular Economy quotes from 2026
Official/Statutory Adviser to the Government Sources
Residual waste refers to discarded materials disposed of through incineration or landfill, or used in energy recovery and so lost to the economy. This is inefficient. It compounds the environmental and climate impacts of extracting and processing the original raw materials through the need for new raw materials for new products.
Circular Economy quotes from 2024
Governmental Sources
Lucy Powell, the Leader of the House of Commons:
The Government are committed to developing a circular economy in which we do not need waste incinerators...
The proposed plant must not compete with greater waste prevention, re-use, or recycling, or result in over-capacity of residual waste treatment at a national or local level...The Secretary of State should be satisfied, with reference to the relevant waste strategies and plans, that the proposed waste combustion generating station [e.g. incinerator] is in accordance with the waste hierarchy and of an appropriate type and scale so as not to prejudice the achievement of local or national waste management targets in England and local, regional or national waste management targets in Wales.
Industry Sources
Bruno-Frédéric Baudouin, CEO of Kanadevia Inova:
...A plant for the future needs to be something that is decarbonised, that is circular...To some extent...waste-to-energy has no future...You don't want to just produce energy. A waste-to-X plant can be potentially a plant where you're going to have not just thermal treatment capability...
Circular Economy quotes from 2022
Governmental Sources
Victoria Prentis, Minister of State for Defra:
The Government’s view is that Energy from Waste (EfW) should not compete with greater waste prevention, re-use, or recycling. Proposed new plants must not result in an over-capacity of EfW waste treatment provision at a local or national level.
Lorna Slater, Scottish Government Minister for the Circular Economy:
The moratorium [on new waste incineration capacity being consented] was an action taken to encourage a circular economy, in which materials were kept in use as long as possible and precious natural resources were not wasted
Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra):
[Proposed target:] Reduce residual waste (excluding major mineral wastes) kg per capita by 50% by 2042 from 2019 levels. It is proposed that this will be measured as a reduction from the 2019 level, which is estimated to be approximately 560 kg per capita... Residual waste...is usually sent for incineration at an energy recovery plant or to landfill. Tackling residual waste reduces the environmental impacts of treatment, including air, soil, and water pollution, and unnecessary energy use. It is more sustainable to prevent waste completely and, where waste is unavoidable, to recycle it.
Official/Statutory Adviser to the Government Sources
Climate Change Committee:
The key challenge now is to...reduce reliance on incineration by delivering a step-change in recycling, re-use and waste prevention. This will need the Government to implement, and go beyond, its planned waste management reforms.
Climate Change Committee:
...action is required to avoid an over-reliance or over-capacity of incineration.
Other Sources
ReLondon and Valpak:
Preventing 10,000 tonnes of waste bound for incineration would lead to the loss of 1 incineration job and the creation of 386 jobs in circular businesses.
Circular Economy quotes from 2021
Governmental Sources
Lesley Griffiths MS, Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs:
The moratorium on large-scale energy from waste and the upcoming consultations on plastic packaging and deposit return are a clear statement of our intent. Collectively they show how we are taking action to make the circular economy a reality in Wales by keeping resources in use and avoid all waste
Official/Statutory Adviser to the Government Sources
Professor Ian Boyd, Former Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2012-2019):
Having moved from a position of wanting to encourage incineration, I think that it's important to disincentivize people to incinerate, and a tax is one of the methods that could be used to achieve that
Professor Ian Boyd, Former Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2012-2019):
There are a lot of people who are highly incentivised to incinerate waste. Because of the investments we make in waste power plants, we end up a lot of the time creating a market for waste, and therefore trying to generate more waste in order to generate the inputs for the power plants that we've made such large investments in. My feeling is that we've got to use the capacity we have rather than create more capacity, because if you create more capacity you create more demand for materials, and that is simply cranking up the amount of material that comes into the system, and the very last thing we should be doing is, when we throw it away, is putting it in an incinerator
Circular Economy quotes from 2020
Governmental Sources
Rebecca Pow, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
I wanted to be very clear, and I hope it has come out in what I have said, that the measures in the resources and waste strategy and the Environment Bill will enable a paradigm shift, in relation to reducing, reusing and recycling our waste, that should limit the amount that ever has to go to incineration and landfill. I hope that, from what I have said, hon. Members understand what is happening, the direction that the Government are absolutely committed to, and the move to a circular economy.
Other Sources
Robert Clarke, Forbes Contributor:
The main reason for companies to opt for landfill or incineration is unfortunately down to both convenience and cost and, with carpets currently being difficult to recycle, manufacturing processes also have to change. Legislation is urgently required to increase the cost of both incineration and landfill which would then encourage recycling as the viable solution. Without the transparency needed to highlight these issues, improvements will take longer to implement.
Christian Schaible, Policy Manager for Industrial Production at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB):
...There is no place for waste incineration in a circular economy...Ultimately, Europe must prevent waste and stop burning precious resources. To embrace the zero pollution strategy, we need to replace waste incineration with clean heating alternatives. Yet as long as incineration plants are still operating, Europeans expect and deserve the very best protection
Circular Economy quotes from 2019
Other Sources
Changing Markets Foundation, Zero Waste Europe and UKWIN:
In a world increasingly aware of its planetary boundaries, limited resources and rising restrictions on carbon emissions, and with the UK Government committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, it’s imperative that every sector within the UK dramatically shifts to a circular economy model. It is essential that manufacturers – including those in the carpet industry – begin to take responsibility for the products they put on the market, including collection and recycling. Carpet must be designed with waste reduction, reuse and recycling in mind – and this recycling must be carpet-to-carpet in order to close the loop.
Changing Markets Foundation, Zero Waste Europe and UKWIN:
Instead of focusing on increasing carpet-to-carpet recycling, CRUK has relied heavily on incineration and downcycling...Given that so little progress has been made over the past decade, it is time for the UK Government to introduce mandatory legislation for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in the carpet industry...Shifting the carpet industry to a circular economy model is crucial to tackling its substantial waste problem. The current system means society is throwing away billions of pounds of valuable products, while polluting the environment with negative impacts on human health. Carpet companies must redesign their products to reduce waste at source, and enable reuse and closed-loop recycling of their products at the end of life. The way in which carpet is currently designed (mixed fibres, latex secondary backing, glued, use of potentially hazardous chemicals) makes it difficult to recycle...
Libby Peake, senior policy adviser at resources think tank Green Alliance:
Years of neglecting the top options - recycling, reuse and, most importantly, reduction - are starting to take their toll. Most waste isn't an inevitability, but a failure of our current linear economy. Focusing exclusively on diverting material from landfill (in most instances into incineration) represents only a marginal improvement and risks detracting attention from the larger structural changes that will be required to make the economy more sustainable.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation:
Landfill, incineration, and waste-to-energy are not part of the circular economy target state
Circular Economy quotes from 2018
Official/Statutory Adviser to the Government Sources
Professor Ian Boyd, Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
If there is one way of quickly extinguishing the value in a material, it is to stick it in an incinerator and burn it. It may give you energy out at the end of the day, but some of those materials, even if they are plastics, with a little ingenuity, can be given more positive value. One thing that worries me is that we are taking these materials, we are putting them in incinerators, we are losing them forever and we are creating carbon dioxide out of them, which is not a great thing...I think that incineration is not a good direction to go in.
Parliamentary Sources
London Assembly Environment Committee:
Burning waste takes materials out of the circular economy...
Circular Economy quotes from 2017
European Union Sources
Waste Framework Directive Experts' Group:
Too much reliance on "quick-fix" solutions to increase their capacity to pre-treat mixed waste, such as expanding MBT or mixed waste incineration capacity, would be at odds with and undermine more long-term solutions guided by circular economy thinking and the waste hierarchy. Thus, particular attention should be paid to rolling out separate collection and recycling (in particular for municipal of bio-waste) and waste prevention (including of food waste).
Circular Economy quotes from 2016
European Union Sources
European Environment Agency:
One of the central pillars of a circular economy is feeding materials back into the economy and avoiding waste being sent to landfill or incinerated, thereby capturing the value of the materials as far as possible and reducing losses.
European Environment Agency:
While energy recovered through incineration can partly compensate for (fossil) fuel use, incineration is to be minimised, as the energy from incineration can be used only once and thus removes materials from the loop.
Circular Economy quotes from 2013
Academic Sources
Dr. Jeffrey Morris, Dr. Enzo Favoino, et. al.:
WTE facilities are not the best environmental option for managing leftover waste and they are not a bridge to a Zero Waste future, as claimed by the WTE industry.
Circular Economy quotes from 2012
European Union Sources
William Neale, member of cabinet for European Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik with responsibility for waste.:
We have to have a circular economy concept, so it’s highly important that we’re pumping back materials into the economy rather than burning or burying them.
Janez Potočnik European Commissioner for Environment:
...unlimited growth on a limited planet means that this linear approach will inevitably lead to scarcity, price-volatility, supply disruptions and pricing levels that are unaffordable for our economy’s industrial base. This is particularly problematic for Europe, where we are heavily import dependent for our materials. The answer is, instead of burying or burning those materials at the end of their life, to pump them back into the economy.
Other Sources
Ellen MacArthur Foundation:
Today’s recycling processes are typically ‘loose’ or long cycles that reduce material utility to its lowest 'nutrient' level. This is even more true for the incineration of waste. In a circular economy, by contrast, reverse activities in the circular economy will extend across an array of circles for repair and refurbishment of products, and remanufacturing of technical components. Likewise, the reverse chain for biological nutrients returns those back to the biosphere via composting and anaerobic digestion.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation:
Today, ‘reverse cycles’ are significantly impaired by...leakage from the system through subsidised incineration...