Evaluating Opportunities for a Circular Economy

An investigation of economic and decision-making factors 

underlying recycling, reusing and remanufacturing habits in 

U.S. consumers and manufacturers

Rebecca Hanes, Scott Nicholson, and Alberta Carpenter

Strategic Energy Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology

June 27, 2018

NREL/PR-6A20-71842

This work was authored by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, the manager and operator of the National Renewable Energy 

Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. Funding provided by U.S. Department 

of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Advanced Manufacturing Office. The views expressed in the article do not 

necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the 

article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to 

publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.
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Summary of Previous Work

System dynamics (SD) analysis of strategies to reduce energy use in aluminumintensive sectors

• SD modeling used to quantify technical potential of various strategies to 

reduce the energy impacts of aluminum use and re-use

• Accounted for distinct aluminum use types, reusability limitations imposed 

by alloying elements, delays from time aluminum spends in use

General conclusion: Increasing the amount of recirculating (secondary) 

aluminum is the only way to decouple energy consumption from aluminum use
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Achieving Circular Material Flows

• Previous work focused on simple end-of-life recycling system

• Recycling can get cumbersome as more products are recycled
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Achieving Circular Material Flows

• Previous work focused on simple end-of-life recycling system

• Recycling can get cumbersome as more products are recycled

• This work expands the focus to include a more complete 

recycling and reuse system

• Energy, effort required for recycling can be (relatively) high

• Remanufacturing and similar efforts can require less energy

o But: Shifts in consumer purchasing habits and 

manufacturing practices may be required
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Objectives

Assess 

current 

product 

systems with 

varying 

degrees of 

circularity

Investigate 

barriers and 

drivers for 

circular 

economy 

methods

Construct “blue 

sky” circular 

economy 

scenarios and 

gauge their 

attainability 

relative to 

current status

• Recycling

• Reusing

• Remanufacturing

• Refurbishing

• Vehicles

• Consumer 

electronics

Within a U.S. context ...

Future work
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Presentation Overview

• Learn by example: Assess a highly circular product system, 

a moderately circular system and a mostly linear system

– Which aspects of each product system promote circularity? 

– Which aspects hinder circularity?

– How are the product systems different, and how might 

these differences be influencing circularity?

– Do the highly circular and less circular systems have 

anything in common?

• Draw some conclusions around how each product system 

might improve in circularity

• Future work: Moving towards quantitative blue sky 

scenarios
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Circular System Overview: Vehicles

• 95+% of end-of-life vehicles are re-sold as used, stripped for 

useful parts and/or sent to scrapping (Jody et al., 2011)

• Recovery rates vary by material; can be as high as 90% (Kelly 

and Apelian, 2016)

• No information on how recovered materials are used (Wang, 

2018)

• Extensive market for used vehicles

• Replacement parts are a mix of new and used or 

refurbished

?
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Circular System Overview: Vehicles

• Shifts in materials used for new vehicles will complicate 

future use of secondary materials (Modaresi and Muller, 2012)

Secondary 

aluminum sink

Aluminum Association (2018)

• Secondary materials 

identification and 

sorting technologies 

(Li et al., 2011)

• Product design: 

Maintain structural 

requirements when 

using secondary raw 

materials 

(Noshadravan et al., 

2017)

Summary of Barriers:

• EOL return rate is unlikely to 

reach 100% (Lakhan, 2016), but is 

already high
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Circular System Overview: Consumer Electronics

• Manufacturer and retailer take-back programs are 

moderately widespread but not as widely used by 

consumers (Saphores et al., 2006; Electronics Takeback Coalition, 2016; 

Fang and Rau, 2017)

• Circularity is slowly increasing, 

possibly driven by demand for rare 

earth elements and other valuable 

materials (Tansel, 2017)

• Used market is also growing
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Circular System Overview: Consumer Electronics

• Electronics recycling processes require economies of scale 

to achieve profitability (Rahman and Subramanian, 2012)

– Improved technologies for secondary material sorting and 

identification will also promote profitability

• Refurbishment and similar processes will likely be more 

economical for manufacturers, considering the short 

product lifetimes (Parjuly and Wenzel, 2017)

– Products are sometimes designed to prevent nonmanufacturer upgrading or resale 

• Relatively little buy-in from consumers on electronics 

recycling

– Increased effort compared to vehicles

– Low or no monetary incentive
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Why the differences?

Convenience and Practicality

• Product size: Excess electronics products can be stored easily

• Integration of recycling/refurbishing with purchase: Vehicle trade-ins 

are normalized and widely used

Monetary Incentive

• Retailers and manufacturers: Amount of material in each product; ease 

of recovery and separation

• Consumers: Potentially large benefit from returning EOL vehicles; 

uncertain, possibly non-monetary benefit for returning EOL electronics

• Consumer perceptions of value and quality

Culture

• Strong culture around keeping and maintaining cars in the U.S.

• Less so for consumer electronics
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Summary and Next Steps

• This work investigated barriers and drivers for the circular 

economy by assessing the current status of several 

product systems with various degrees of circularity.

• Currently: Have a qualitative understanding of how 

circularity can be promoted across several product 

systems

• Next fiscal year: We’ll be working on developing 

relationships and collaborations with industrial 

stakeholders to continue this project with more detailed, 

quantitative information
NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency 

and Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

www.nrel.gov

NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency 

and Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency

and Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

For further information contact:

Rebecca Hanes, rebecca.hanes@nrel.gov

Thank you
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