Keeping value in circulation through better choices
The more I work on circularity, the more I find myself questioning one assumption. What if we’ve underestimated where circularity really begins?
Most conversations start at the end.
They’re all important questions. But by the time a product reaches a recycler, many of the decisions that determine its future have already been made.
Perhaps circularity doesn’t start with waste at all. Perhaps it starts with the choices we make long before waste exists. One thought, in particular, has stayed with me over the past few months.
A recycler can only recover the value that remains in a product.
That simple idea changed the way I look at circularity. It also changed the way I listened during our recent Co-creation Meetings in Amsterdam. Recyclers weren’t simply invited to react to ideas. They helped shape them. What struck me wasn’t a request for more textile waste.
It was a request for better feedstock. Materials whose chemistry is known. Materials that retain their value. Materials that can safely and confidently remain in circulation. To me, that was a subtle but important shift. The conversation was no longer only about recovering materials. It was about preserving their value.
A recent article on dye recovery reinforced this way of thinking. Even in a highly specialised area, the objective isn’t to recover everything. It’s to maximise overall environmental benefit.
Recovering dyes, chemicals, or materials only makes sense if the environmental benefits outweigh the environmental costs. Sometimes it will. Sometimes it won’t. That’s not a weakness of circularity. It’s simply the reality of systems thinking.
Too often, we search for perfect solutions. Perhaps we should spend more time identifying the solutions that create the greatest impact. Collection matters. Product design matters. Business models matter. Recycling technologies matter.
But all of them ultimately depend on the value that remains in the material itself. That’s where chemistry enters the conversation.
Not because chemistry alone will solve circularity. It won’t. Not because we believe we’ve found the solution, but because we believe chemistry should become a deliberate enabler of circular systems, not a barrier to them.
Looking at circularity through this lens changes the questions we ask.
I don’t pretend to know all the answers. In fact, I suspect we’re only beginning to ask the right questions. Those questions are now shaping the Circularity Framework that the ZDHC community is co-creating, not because we think we’ve found the answers, but because we believe chemistry deserves a far more intentional role in circular systems.
We’ll continue that conversation at the ZDHC Circularity Summit in Lisbon this November, inviting the community to challenge, improve and build on this thinking.
Many years ago, one of my managers gave me a piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten.
“Francesco, we don’t have to land on the moon. We only need to make this thing fly.”
At the time, it was about delivering a project. Today, I think it also applies to circularity. If we wait for perfect solutions, we’ll probably wait forever. If, instead, we focus on the decisions that preserve the greatest value and deliver the greatest impact, we’ll move the whole system forward. Because perhaps circularity isn’t really about keeping materials in circulation.
It’s about keeping their value in circulation. And maybe that’s where circularity really begins. Not with waste. But with the choices we make long before waste exists.
