6
Synergies and Interdependencies Across Future State and Solution Pathways

An overarching theme across the workshop was the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration and bringing together facets of the value chain that do not typically work directly with one another—breaking linearity in both supply chain and in communication. This approach facilitates much of the work in leveraging and building on existing synergies and interdependencies, including dealing with legacy materials, policies and standards, design and technologies, and data needs.

While thinking about future circular systems in development, one question is how to address legacy materials currently in use. This question is particularly difficult to answer for buildings, given the longer life cycle of materials. The turnover time to incorporate more sustainable materials into the building stock is on the order of decades to centuries as they are retrofitted or rebuilt. Textiles have shorter lifespans than buildings but can still remain in circulation for decades. The transient nature of use of plastics in packaging and constant introduction of new packaging into the supply chain (and disposal thereof) means that, compared with the other sectors, it is easier to cycle out the legacy materials. Of note, beyond legacy plastics already in use, each sector of course has significant infrastructure invested in supplying the current materials.

Another urgent issue highlighted across use sectors, related to both legacy materials and new plastic materials, is the shedding of microplastics and nanoplastics. Several participants noted that collective methods of management would be helpful. Other considerations include rate of release and responsibility for release. Reduction of micro- and nanoplastics is tied into product design, which is another area of synergy. Independent product design or redesign without a system view across the value chain will likely not improve circularity. Thinking through the movement of products through the value chain and the locations where they are collected, reused, and recycled could help to identify opportunities for collaboration and improved efficiency.

Many participants from different sectors—both industry and nonprofit—noted the importance of robust and unified policies or standards to set goals and simultaneously provide a level playing field for companies working toward circularity. This level-setting for circularity can be done in building codes, for example, and in building materials, liability can be assigned through contracts more easily than in other sectors. Standards can also be used to identify responsible feedstock sourcing for materials when current recycling and other methods of reclaiming materials differ from community to community. This approach includes data and technology to monitor and verify the outcomes, as well as testing and identification of materials that flow through the value chain. Digital passports are one way to account for the material moving through the supply chain but do not address possible degradation of materials during use and over time. Technological opportunities in all sectors can address these issues.

Participants also emphasized the importance of education and engagement while being mindful of rights of communities, including Indigenous communities and others that may be adversely impacted by activities along the supply chain.

A number of tensions applicable to all sectors were also addressed during the workshop—the focus on recycling above other circularity approaches, the broader system beyond plastics, the economics, and the balance between allowing choice and enacting utilitarian decisions. Notably, the ability to advance higher-level re-x options has not been substantively supported by existing policy and physical infrastructure. This tension relates to the economics, that is, who pays for the different infrastructure, how investments are prioritized, and whether the focus is upstream where interventions can be more effective or downstream. Some participants asserted that, with the goal of minimizing environmental and human health impacts, recycling is the longest loop that may be considered part of circularity, prioritizing the shorter loops of reduction and reuse consistent with the waste hierarchy adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (n.d.b). That said, it is important to address whether the means of processing materials are appropriately described as recycling (e.g., forms of which are sometimes called chemical recycling) and are incentivized in order to lead to the desired environmental goals.

Although this workshop focused specifically on plastics, the discussion closed by noting that these supply chain systems are larger than just plastics and that the plastic pollution problem cannot be solved by working on plastics in isolation.