Circular Economy

It refers to an economy that integrates cleaner production and comprehensive utilization of wastes, which is essentially an ecological economy, and requires the use of ecological laws to guide the economic activities of human society. It is an economic development mode based on the continuous recycling of materials, which requires economic activities to follow the pattern of natural ecosystems to form a specific circulation flow process of resource-product-renewable resource, making the entire economic system and the production and consumption process basically produce no or little wastes. China’s circular economy legislation is mainly reflected in two basic laws: the “Cleaner Production Promotion Law” adopted by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee in June 2002 and implemented on January 1, 2003; the

“Circular Economy Promotion Law” adopted by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee in August 2008 and implemented on January 1, 2009. The traditional economy is a one-way flow economy composed of resources-products-wastes, while the circular economy is a brand-new economic development mode. Its basic characteristics are as follows: it is a new system view, representing a large system composed of people, natural resources, science and technology and other elements, which requires people to remain within this large system when considering production and consumption, and regard themselves as part of this large system to study economic principles that conform to objective laws. It is a new economic concept, which requires the use of ecological laws to form a virtuous circle within the carrying capacity of resources and achieving a balanced development of the ecosystem.

It is a new value, which not only treats nature as an available resource, but also uses it as the basis for human survival. It is an ecosystem that needs to maintain a virtuous cycle; it considers not only the ability of science and technology to develop nature, but also the ability to restore the ecosystem, making it a technology that is beneficial to the environment; it not only considers the ability of man to conquer nature, but also pays more attention to the ability of man and nature to live in harmony, promoting all-round development of human being. It is a new production concept, which fully considers the carrying capacity of natural ecosystems, saves natural resources as much as possible, continuously improves the utilization efficiency of natural resources, recycles resources, and creates benign social wealth. It is a new consumption concept, which promotes moderate consumption and hierarchical consumption of materials, considers the recycling of wastes while consuming, and establishes the concept of recycling production and consumption. Therefore, the circular economy is a fundamental transformation of the traditional economic mode of “mass production, mass consumption, and mass wastes”. The code of conduct for circular economy activities is: the principle of reduction, that is, using as few raw materials and energy as possible to complete the established production goals and consumption; the principle of reuse, that is, the products and packaging that are produced can be used repeatedly; the principle of recycling, which requires transforming the products into usable resources after completing the use function, and also requires returning the scraps, intermediate materials and other materials generated in the production process to the production process or used otherwise. Circular economy is an economic growth mode that conforms to the concept of sustainable development. It captures China’s current crux of relative shortage of resources but a large amount of consumption, which is of urgent practical significance for solving the bottleneck constraints of resources on economic development in China.