Earth’s resources are finite. To reduce the amount of waste going to landfills, natural resource depletion and pollution, ACC members support solutions that advance circularity in products and operations.
Promoting Circularity in Products & Operations
ACC's 2024 Sustainability Report
Jenny Heumann Godes
Table of Contents
Chemical Industry Actions
Put simply, circularity means transforming products, along with their production processes, from a “take, make, dispose” model to “make, use, return.”
Chemistry is central to circularity. ACC and its members are advancing circularity by realizing value from molecules and materials, through recycling, reuse, repurposing and otherwise extending the useful service of products and materials.
Circularity is a comprehensive approach to process and product sustainability. Circularity principles incorporate life cycle thinking that also weigh product benefits, contributions to global sustainability goals, energy consumption, resource requirements, end-of-life considerations and other environmental impacts.
ACC member companies contribute to circularity by:
- Choosing materials with a lighter environmental footprint.
- Rethinking how products are made, designed and used.
- Designing products that can be reused and/or recycled.
- Capturing materials at the end of their useful life to keep them in play and out of our environment.
- Using conventional and advanced recycling technologies to remake these materials into new materials to be used again and again, reducing and displacing the need to extract limited natural resources.
ACC Member Company Contributions to Circularity
ACC members are innovating products, processes and technologies that are helping to enhance the value of materials.
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