At a family gathering in August, I gave my mom a short tribute on her 90th birthday. As our guests sipped coffee in the warm summer air, I checked out a dozen pieces of wisdom she’d passed on to her family over the decades. One of her things was that she hated overspending. In our homes, items such as clothes and toys have multiple lives before being thrown away, and leftover food turns into tomorrow’s lunch. bottom. In a circular economy, there are multiple iterations of materials and products, and the waste of one process loops back to become the input of another process.

For people of her generation, these are shared values. But the younger generation has strayed far from these mindsets, opting instead to produce and consume more. Some of the waste is recycled, but that’s to address the problem of the limited resources the earth can provide.

This finite supply distinguishes matter from energy. There is no doubt that in the future we will be able to generate more solar power and build fusion reactors to end the energy shortage forever. But for physical resources, such technology is out of sight.

That’s what makes the studies reported in this Outlook so important. As the world seeks to put its economy on a sustainable footing, this Outlook looks at progress and barriers to the sustainable use and reuse of plastics. Electronic devices such as mobile phones. building materials; clothing and other textiles; It also considers the urgent need to transition biofuels to greener forms, promote less soil-depleting and carbon-producing agriculture, and better manage the planet’s water resources. increase. The two researchers also debate whether plastic recycling is at the heart of progress in the circular economy, or whether it becomes a counterproductive distraction from the need for more fundamental change.

We would like to thank Google for its financial support in the production of this Outlook. As usual, Nature You are solely responsible for all edits.