Circulatory Materials

Project Summary

Circularity – re-using or re-generating wastes as resources – is sustainability’s holy grail. Yet materials seldom move in ways imagined by models of circularity. This project team will explore this gap – between what circularity is imagined to be and trajectories of materials in practice – through an extended interdisciplinary research conversation about the potential and limits of circularity as an aspirational, ethical and practical framework. It will probe, challenge and critically recast calls for a ‘circular economy’ by examining how circularity runs up against stubborn geographies of material movement, diverse moral registers associated with wastes, and complexities of materials transformation. To sort through circularity from an interdisciplinary perspective, this project will focus on bulk waste, an unloved and understudied category of materials. Bulk wastes are emerging as a ‘new frontier’ for circularity, and the team believes they challenging and engaging questions for the meaning of circularity and what it can become. Through a series of seminars, workshops and site visits facilitated by industrial partners, the project team will develop original research publications, develop funding proposals, facilitate impact and engagement, and support the advancement of early career researchers.

Ambition:

This project will challenge and critically recast a growing body of (normative) work on the ‘circular economy’ premised on extending life-cycles’ of products and maintaining material circulation. It will argue ‘circularity’ – and its goal of eliminating waste and sustaining material circulation – significantly under-specifies the geographies (places, scales) of material movement; range of associated moral registers; and complex ‘arts of transience’ required to re-work materials (Hawkins 2001; Gregson et al. 2010). It also recognises that circularity itself is a ‘refurbished’ concept (Reike et al. 2018) with disparate roots in ecological economics, industrial ecology, resilience science, inter alia. Sorting through circularity from an interdisciplinary perspective is goal of this project. Bulk waste, an unloved and understudied category of materials characterised by large volumes, limited recycling, yet potentially valuable will be the focus.

Term:

Epiphany 2027

Activities and Events:

To be updated.