The Effects of Technological Changes on Material Circularity

Abstract

Towards realising circular economy, there has been an emphasis on decoupling economic growth from natural resources consumption. However, increasing product consumption has led to product technology changes that require different types of resources. Despite the use of different product life cycle studies to assist in improving the material usage and decision-making throughout the product life cycle, it is unclear how product development can improve material circularity. This work highlights the implication of product technological changes on material circularity using a complex product, such as a vehicle, through the Australian car door case study and the US new vehicle technologies. The Material Circularity Indicator is used to assess the material circularity for both case studies. This work shows that the transition to newer product design and vehicle technology has led to the reduction of material circularity and the increasing amount of virgin materials required and unrecoverable waste. In contrast, vehicle lightweighting improves the material circularity scores through reduced virgin materials due to the decreased vehicle mass.