Global Circularity Rate Drops to 7.2% Amid Resource Surge

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Humanity has devoured nearly as many raw materials in the last six years as during the entire 20th century, extracting a staggering 582 billion tonnes between 2016 and 2021.

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Global circularity has plummeted from 9.1% to just 7.2% in five years, meaning over 92% of materials now become waste or get locked in long-term use.

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Six of nine planetary boundaries defining environmental health thresholds have been breached due to our wasteful "take-make-waste" economic model.

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High-income nations maintain material footprints approximately 10 times larger than low-income countries, highlighting stark global inequality in resource consumption.

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Shift countries" like the US and EU nations represent just 17% of global population but consume 25% of raw materials at 22.6 tonnes per capita.

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Middle-income "Grow countries" including China and Brazil house 37% of people yet account for 51% of extraction and 52% of the global material footprint.

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Despite comprising 46% of world population, lower-income "Build countries" like Bangladesh and Nigeria represent only 18.5% of global material consumption.

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Circular solutions across food, construction, and manufacturing sectors could slash global extraction by one-third while reversing multiple planetary boundary breaches.

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The transition demands policy reforms including circular economic incentives, environmental cost taxation, and redirection of harmful subsidies.

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Implementation of circular principles—using less, using longer, using again, and making clean—offers the path to an economy operating within safe planetary boundaries.

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