meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Business Daily

The products used again and again and again...

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4816 Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2020

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why don't more manufacturers embrace the principles of the circular economy? It's a pertinent question, given the dire state of the recycling industry.

Manuela Saragosa speaks to one company that has already implemented the principles of the circular economy. Cardboard box manufacturer DS Smith tracks its products throughout their life, and can reuse the fibres they contain up to 25 times, according to the firm's sustainability lead, Sam Jones.

So why don't more manufacturers do the same? Manuela speaks to circular economy expert Alexandre Lemille, Jarkko Havas of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Josephine von Mitschke-Collande of EIT Climate-KIC in Switzerland.

(Picture: Old plastic water bottle on a beach; Credit: s-c-s/Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, I'm Manuel Zaragoza. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Coming up, the product you can use again and again and again and again and again. So the same fibers, the same material, will go round and round the same loop. And that can happen anywhere between seven and 25 times.

0:21.6

We're talking about the circular economy.

0:23.8

Is this how all products will eventually be made and used?

0:27.4

After all, the recycling industry is in a bit of a mess.

0:30.8

We have more and more issues controlling that volume of waste

0:34.2

and therefore we try to ship them out of our countries,

0:37.0

which creates

0:37.6

very difficult conditions for workers and health issues in other countries that are not

0:42.4

equipped to treat our waste.

0:44.2

That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC.

0:49.9

The environment and climate change and what business and politics can do about them are high

0:55.9

on the agenda at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year. But the messages from leaders there

1:01.2

have been, well, a bit mixed, really. At the World Economic Forum, President Trump dismissed

1:06.5

environmental campaigners as unnecessary profits of doom. That's unlike Prince Charles, who called for urgent action.

1:14.1

If there is one critical lesson we have to learn from this crisis,

1:20.1

it is that nature, ladies and gentlemen, is not a separate asset class.

1:26.2

Nature is in fact the lifeblood of our financial markets.

1:32.0

And as such, we must rapidly realign our own economy to mimic nature's economy and work in harmony

1:40.5

with it. Well, Prince Charles may be calling on the world to work with nature rather than against it,

1:46.5

but at the same World Economic Forum, Coca-Cola, one of the world's biggest producers of

1:50.9

plastic waste, said it won't stop using plastic bottles for its drinks because consumers

1:56.1

still want them.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.