Produce, buy, use, throw away. This is how we were taught to consume. Throwing something away is part of the consumption process today. It is true that the industrial and technological revolutions have made life easier for many people, but above all these advances have trivialized a new behavior: hyper consumption.
At Oé we racked our brains a lot to respond to this linear model of consumption where we produce, we use and then we throw away.
We asked ourselves different questions, including this one: “ How do you stop throwing something away when you can use it again?”.
While searching, we came across a great podcast that talks about the world of tomorrow, hosted by Julien Vidal, founder of the “it starts with me” movement. In this podcast we find the testimony of Jules Coignard, co-founder of Circulaire, the first global network of circular economy start-ups.
Are you ready to know everything about the circular economy? ;)
Oh, but where are we going?
If you are asked how you find the French economic model, I am sure, even for the most patriotic among you, that you will find something to complain about.
Let's focus on the waste problem . We know that we produce more and more waste. 91% of the world's production works linearly . That is to say that 91% of what we extract and what we produce will have an end of life incinerated, buried or will end up in nature.
The real concern is that we draw on resources as if they were limitless. We therefore have a double problem : upstream with resources that are becoming increasingly scarce ; and downstream, with waste management that turns out to be complicated.
One might wonder if our economic model is not out of breath. Resources are extracted so that they eventually become waste.
There is therefore no economic interest.
Two sentences echo this real concern in our way of seeing consumption: “ waste is a resource in the wrong place ”, and “waste is a design error” .
When we take the time to reread these sentences we realize that we could rethink the way of writing our production and ensure that the waste is an aberration. So get to your pens, let's rewrite the future together!
It works with the circular economy!
Many of us have already heard of the circular economy.
Nothing to do with an economy where everyone would be on a bicycle (even if we would like to), the circular economy consists of producing in a sustainable way by limiting the consumption and waste of resources and the production of waste.
In this economy there are different positive value loops. The longest loops in this economy are around waste recycling. So THE question in the circular economy is: “how to better recycle your waste?”
But when we ask ourselves this question, it means that we are already producing waste. So there are shorter curls (no, we're not talking about haircuts).
To arrive on these shorter loops we reuse, repair, rent. This requires a real change of model to succeed in modifying habits and ways of thinking.
These loops have different names so that they can be treated separately. On the one hand, we have biological loops , where the waste produced is organic and can return to the earth without damaging our beautiful ecosystem.
And on the other side, we have technical loops , which concern what has been transformed and cannot return as it is to the earth.
For these loops we favor the “short” way by reusing, repairing these products. The ultimate goal of circularity is to tend towards short curls. We keep the value of the product and we create more jobs . So we have an optimized environmental, economic and social impact, what more could you ask for?
At Oé, we are followers of the circular economy and for that we have put in place the deposit (the reuse) of our bottles . Instead of throwing away a glass bottle to be recycled*, we will wash it and then reuse it.
*And yes, recyclable does not mean recycled . In France in 2020 only 85% of the glass was recycled , the rest... buried!
To give you an idea, in a new bottle, there are not only recycled materials. The transparent bottles are made of 70% new raw material and the green bottles 25%.
Dizzy jobs
I can already hear you saying to yourself “but if we stop producing new things, we're going to close a lot of jobs, that's not going well at all!”. Well, guess what, no. We are not losing jobs by moving to a circular model. On the contrary, to prove all this to you, here are data from a study by the Ministry of Ecological Transition to visualize this change.
In the short term, in France, 300,000 net jobs will be created if we switch to a circular economy.
Very simply, to manage 10,000 tonnes of waste, if we bury it, it will create 1 job, if we incinerate it, it will create 3 and if we recycle it, we will create 31 jobs, finally, if we reuse it, we will create… 550 jobs!
Well yes, it takes people to wash, recondition, repair, reuse… No more bullshit jobs. When people work for the circular economy, they are more motivated, they smile, they manage to perceive the value created for living things . Even if I would not dare to say that by building football stadiums in the desert we do not perceive the value created for the living, far be it from me that idea...
These circular economy professions call on everyone's creativity and personality , everyone can revisit a profession, reinvent the way things are done.
This new model implies changes in the needs, it is therefore necessary to readjust, to create new professions . We see it with the application of bulk, deposit, many professions are to be created around this new process. So whatever your skills and your profession, you can put circularity in your business!
