Since the beginning of the Third Millennium, many analysts (both economic and scientific) have detected in the most recent circular economy patterns the ultimate solution to switch from an environmentally “unhealthy” economic model to another based on the reduction of raw materials waste and a general eco-sustainability. All of them agreed that the primary essential prerequisite to achieving such an ambitious goal was developing a series of technologies able to recycle used materials, detect and analyze any primary resources’ waste, and reduce pollution.
The development of these technologies is taking its time. While the environment requests urgent measures of pollution containment and reduction of natural resource exploitation, some of them are still incomplete. Or at least, at their current stadium, they’re still unable to achieve all the goals that their developers are pursuing.
On the other hand, many other technologies are now effective and able to fulfill their creators’ requests, and they’re currently working in many different operative environments. Their main task is obviously to help companies and public institution to optimize their resources and find a way to reduce their consumption. The 2022 situation tells us that many Circular economy practices (declined in many ways) are active nowadays. Each contributes to fighting massive pollution, fossil energy production and raw materials waste.
Five technologies to improve the circular economy
But what are the most effective and impactful technology that we can use to achieve the primary goal of a more sustainable economic horizon (and therefore, as a primary consequence, a more sustainable way of life that doesn’t imply strict and severe self-denial actions)?
We have detected five of them: they are listed below.
Artificial Intelligence. It may sound banal and obvious, to the point that it’s not even worth remarking. But the truth is that every severe revolution in terms of environment preservation hinges on the use of AI in every sector involved in this process. The fields of application are countless. Just think about the world of agriculture and farming: the use of AI can revolutionize the practices inherent to this specific production sector. How? For example, managing the distribution of water on the fields, according to the actual states of the ground and the cultivations, as well as the most accurate weather forecast: a farmer can avoid the huge waste of water that typically characterizes traditional agriculture. Or, in a completely different sector, managing the cargo handling systems, both overland and maritime, or even the air transport ones: thanks to the AI, they can be organized in such a way that every vehicle and mean of transportation can always choose the shortest and fastest path, resulting in a drastic reduction of consumption and gas emission. Finally (but the list could go on ad libitum), AI can detect industrial machinery wear, a factor that, if not promptly fixed, can dramatically increase the pollution caused by the ordinary industries’ production routine.
Big data analytic systems. Environmental researchers generally work on a global scale, or at the very least, they consider a mass of data obtained over a large portion of territory for a reasonably long time. Moreover, they have to manage several parameters: dozens, sometimes hundreds, of criteria and variables to be put about each other. This means that the volume of data that they have to process is way more than huge: it’s something that an ordinary calculator could never elaborate on unless it’s given an unlimited period. That’s why the most evolved big data systems and models, with their best current technologies, are crucial to study, for instance, climate change, to obtain credible and reliable predictive models. The use of big data is spreading like wildfire in every sector, from the air quality measurements in the most polluted areas of the planet to the information about the number of recyclable materials available in every city/region/county/state/continent.
Bioengineering and biotechnologies. These words indicate a series of scientific areas that use technologies involving only biological elements. Among their main goals, they have a radical change in the shape and exteriority of our cities. According to the most renowned bioengineers, the future cities will be built only with biological materials: no more concrete or poorly biodegradable construction elements. But civil engineering is not the only application area of biotechnologies: from the medical sector to the food industry; there isn’t a single aspect of our life that the most significant bioengineering innovations won’t hit. An example stands out above all: a new bacteria family able to “eat” and destroy almost every plastic derivative.
Robotics. Useless to deny it: in some specific working fields, the use of robots has become more than necessary. The performance abilities of the most evolved ones are incomparable and just not reachable by mankind. Just think about the use of nanorobots in surgery and the precision and capillarity that they’re able to ensure. For what concerns the circular economy, the most promising field of application of robotics is the recycling of used materials, in particular electronic components. Some robots currently working are able to dismantle inoperative, obsolete or broken devices like smartphones or tablets, isolating every single component, even the tiniest one, and detecting the category of each one of them and their status (working or non-functioning), in order to recycle the still operative ones.
Web applications. Besides the recycle system, there is another protocol that, if adopted, can ensure a considerable saving of materials: the reuse of already existing products, which are in a good state and ready to be used or consumed, but for whatever reason, they just stay in their warehouses, waiting for their decay. The problem here is creating a network to connect with those interested in using or reusing these products. And this is precisely what many apps are already doing: some of them deal with food sharing (especially those foods that are close to their expiration dates), and some others allow their subscribers to trade the exceeding raw materials or products (for example, a supply of firewood for a shipment of pet food). The list is, also, in this case, much longer.
And in more general terms, these seem to be just the beginning of the unlimited innovations that the circular economy is about to introduce.
