The 7 Rs of circular economy

The circular economy is often summarised through a set of guiding principles known as the "7 Rs": redesign, reduce, reuse, renew, repair, recycle and retrieve – each representing a different way of extending the useful life of a product before it becomes waste.

Models of consumption and product lifecycles

Traditional, linear consumption models follow a simple path: extract, produce, use, discard. The 7 Rs framework reframes the product lifecycle as something with multiple possible branches at the end – rather than a product reaching the end of its life and going straight to disposal, each "R" represents an opportunity to redirect it back into use in some form.

Circular economy

The circular economy aims to keep materials and products in use for as long as possible, and to recover as much value as possible when they do eventually reach end of life. The 7 Rs give that aim a practical structure – a hierarchy of options to work through before resorting to recycling, and recycling itself before resorting to disposal.

How to give a new life to products

In practice, giving products a new life means designing them so that redesign, repair and renewal are actually possible – products that can be disassembled, components that can be replaced, and materials that, when recycling is the only remaining option, can be separated cleanly. This is where sorting technology becomes relevant: even within the "recycle" stage of the 7 Rs, the quality of sorting determines how much value is recovered from a product at the end of its life.

Circular companies

Companies that build circular economy thinking into their core operations – rather than treating it as a side initiative – tend to look for ways the 7 Rs apply across their whole value chain, from how products are designed to how materials are recovered once those products are no longer needed.

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