Giuseppe Landolfo, CFO at i-Foria, explains how Europe is closing one of its most overlooked waste loops: nappies.

When we talk about the circular economy, attention typically turns to steel, concrete, timber or energy; rarely does the conversation begin with nappies.

Yet absorbent hygiene products (AHPs), including disposable nappies, sanitary pads and incontinence products, represent one of Europe’s most persistent and problematic waste streams, accounting for around 4–7% of municipal solid waste. Every year in Italy alone, enough AHP waste is landfilled to fill, close and replace three entire landfill sites.

Until recently, these products were widely considered impossible to recycle. Made from complex layers of plastics, cellulose fibres and superabsorbent polymers, and contaminated after use, AHPs have sat firmly at the end of a linear model: manufacture, consume, dispose. That assumption is now being challenged.

In July 2025, a new recycling demonstration facility opened in Spresiano, Veneto, marking a global first: a plant capable of recovering high-quality secondary raw materials from used absorbent hygiene products.

Powered by proprietary technology developed by Italian clean-tech company i-Foria and supported by the EU-funded ICARUS project, the facility represents more than a technical breakthrough. It signals what a truly circular construction ecosystem could look like when innovation, policy and infrastructure begin to align.

Turning the unrecyclable into a resource

The Spresiano demonstration plant operates at a pre-industrial scale, processing around 100 kilograms of AHP waste per batch. The plant demonstrates that nappies and other hygiene products can be sterilised, separated and transformed into materials suitable for reuse under Italy’s strict End-of-Waste criteria, using a process designed for low energy consumption and high efficiency.

The process begins with controlled collection. Used products undergo thermo-mechanical treatment and sterilisation, addressing one of the central barriers to AHP recycling: biological contamination. The material is then separated into two high-value outputs (plastics, absorbent material), each assessed for quality and reuse potential.

What emerges defies expectations. The plastics recovered from AHPs are notably high grade, retaining performance characteristics originally designed to be thin, flexible and skin-safe. Once granulated, they can be reintegrated into manufacturing streams for products ranging from urban furniture and playground components to clothes hangers.

The cellulose fraction is equally compelling. Unlike wood-based pulp, AHP cellulose is largely lignin-free, soft and high-purity, having been designed to sit against human skin. These characteristics make it well-suited for construction applications such as insulation panels, construction fillers and composite materials – sectors urgently seeking lower-carbon and bio-based inputs.

Each tonne of recycled AHP material displaces virgin pulp and fossil-based plastics, cutting carbon emissions while reducing pressure on forests and non-renewable resources. This is not downcycling. It is high-value circular recovery.

Construction’s circular blind spot

The relevance to the built environment is hard to overstate. Construction remains one of Europe’s least circular sectors. Across the EU, it accounts for close to 40% of total carbon emissions and generates nearly one-third of all waste. Yet only around 40% of construction and demolition waste is successfully reused or recycled, and much of that is downcycled into lower-grade applications.

In 2024, the EU’s construction sector recorded a circular material use rate of just 12%, highlighting how early the transition still is. Against this backdrop, alternative secondary raw materials are no longer a niche interest but a strategic necessity.

Rising material costs, supply chain volatility and declining natural resources are forcing the industry to rethink where materials come from – and what counts as ‘waste’. This is where initiatives such as ICARUS come into focus.

ICARUS: Closing loops across sectors

Funded under the Horizon Europe programme and led by ACCIONA’s Construction business, ICARUS brings together 18 partners from seven European countries, including Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, France and the Netherlands. Its ambition is to transform industrial and urban waste streams into high-quality secondary raw materials for use in construction, mobility, energy and manufacturing.

The Spresiano facility forms a critical part of this vision. Beyond AHP recycling, the plant is also being used to validate the recovery and upcycling of cellulosic materials extracted from urban wastewater treatment plants operated by ACCIONA Water Business. Traditionally disposed of as sludge, these fibres are now being processed for high-value applications across construction, chemical and technological sectors.

To support consistency and scalability, ICARUS is integrating AI-powered digital platforms to optimise operations, monitor material quality and improve process efficiency. The aim is not only to recover materials, but to recover them at standards that allow seamless reintegration into industrial supply chains.

This focus on quality is essential. For circular construction to scale, secondary raw materials must meet the same technical and regulatory requirements as virgin inputs. Anything less risks locking recycled materials into low-value niches.

A nappy problem hiding in plain sight

The potential impact extends far beyond Italy. Disposable nappies are an unavoidable part of modern life. Around 95% of families in developed countries rely on them, with each child using between 4,000 and 6,000 nappies before being potty trained. Globally, more than 300,000 disposable nappies are sent to landfill or incineration every minute.

The environmental cost is staggering. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the disposable nappy industry consumes over 248 million barrels of crude oil every year. Most nappies take between 150 and 500 years to decompose.

In regions without robust waste infrastructure, the problem becomes visible and acute. Nappies account for a significant share of plastic pollution in waterways, from Southeast Asia to West Africa, where fishers regularly report diapers floating out to sea.

Yet alternatives remain limited. Bio-based disposable nappies are expensive, while reusable cloth nappies require access to clean water, laundry facilities and time – resources that are not always available, particularly for new parents.

For decades, recycling was dismissed as technically unfeasible. The mixed materials, the bonding methods, and the biological contamination all posed formidable barriers. i-Foria’s innovation lies in showing that those barriers are no longer insurmountable.

Policy, markets and the missing middle

Europe’s policy landscape is beginning to catch up. The forthcoming EU Circular Economy Act, expected in 2026, aims to establish a true Single Market for secondary raw materials by stimulating both supply and demand for high-quality recycled inputs. The goal is to double the EU’s circularity rate from around 12% to 24% by 2030 – a shift expected to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and unlock significant investment.

Yet technology alone is not enough. One of the challenges facing AHP recycling is what happens after the bin is emptied. In Italy, around 20 million citizens are already served by separate diaper collection schemes. In municipalities with effective door-to-door systems, nappies are already being sorted – only to be sent, paradoxically, to incineration or landfill due to the absence of suitable recycling infrastructure.

The Spresiano plant addresses this missing middle. It demonstrates how separately collected AHP waste can be transformed into industrial feedstock rather than treated as an expensive disposal problem.

The next step is scale. i-Foria plans to develop a semi-industrial module operating on continuous feed, capable of processing one to two tonnes of AHP waste per day. Backed by a mix of public and private investment, the objective is to prove economic viability at scale and support replication across Europe.

Building with tomorrow’s waste

For the construction sector, the implications are profound. Recovered cellulose fibres can displace virgin materials in insulation, panels and composites. Recycled AHP plastics can re-enter durable applications. Wastewater cellulose can open up entirely new bio-based material pathways.

More importantly, projects like ICARUS point towards a construction industry that no longer sees waste management as someone else’s problem. Instead, waste becomes a shared resource pool – one that spans municipal services, manufacturing, water utilities and construction.

From a circular economy perspective, this is what maturity looks like: not isolated recycling initiatives, but integrated value chains where materials flow across sectors, enabled by technology, standards and collaboration.

Few would have predicted that disposable nappies might one day help insulate homes or reduce reliance on virgin plastics. But as Europe grapples with climate targets, resource constraints and mounting waste, the question is no longer whether such transformations are possible.

The technology exists. The waste exists. The demand exists.

What comes next is a choice – an opportunity – to build a construction economy from materials we once threw away.

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Xeroc and Stuff4Life founder Dr Miles Watkins explores the potential impacts and benefits of pricing carbon at the border.

Within 12 months, carbon embedded in key materials will be priced at the UK border – in the EU, the same mechanism has just come into effect.

How will it work, why does it matter, and what does it mean for UK recyclers?

What is CBAM and why does it matter?

In essence, a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a carbon price applied at the border. It is designed to ensure that imported goods – particularly those from emissions-intensive sectors – bear a carbon cost comparable to products manufactured domestically under carbon pricing regimes. 

The aim is to prevent ‘carbon leakage’, where production shifts to countries with weaker climate policies while domestic industries face rising regulatory costs. Whilst some may argue that this is ‘too little, too late’, others will argue that this is an essential measure to tackle climate change and the next step towards globally agreed carbon reduction targets. 

In the UK, heavy industries, such as steel, cement and aluminium, already pay for their emissions under the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS). Without a CBAM, overseas producers operating in regions with lower or no carbon pricing can undercut UK manufacturers simply because their emissions go unpriced. 

CBAM corrects this imbalance by charging importers for the embedded carbon in goods unless an equivalent carbon cost has already been paid in the exporting country. The result is a fairer competitive landscape and stronger incentives globally to decarbonise production.

UK timeline and sector coverage

The UK government has confirmed that its CBAM will take effect on 1 January 2027. At launch, it will apply to imports in five high-emissions sectors:

• Aluminium
• Cement
• Fertiliser
• Hydrogen
• Iron and steel

These industries were selected because they are both carbon-intensive and highly exposed to international competition.

The EU moves first: CBAM in 2026

The European Union’s CBAM enters its full operational phase in 2026, one year ahead of the UK. This earlier implementation has immediate implications for UK exporters, who must already prepare to provide emissions data to EU customers. 

As the EU market tightens carbon transparency requirements, UK firms without comparable domestic protections could face a double disadvantage: higher domestic carbon costs and tougher export conditions. 

The UK’s 2027 rollout is therefore partly defensive: aligning trade policy with climate ambition to safeguard domestic industry.

How CBAM will function

Under the UK model, importers of covered goods must calculate the greenhouse-gas emissions embedded in those products.

A charge is levied reflecting the difference between the UK carbon price and any carbon price already paid overseas. Revenues reinforce the domestic decarbonisation signal and protect UK industry from high-carbon imports.

The key benefits for UK manufacturers include: 

• A fair competitive environment: CBAM ensures imported cement, steel, and aluminium are not artificially cheaper simply because their carbon was unregulated.
• Stronger investment confidence: When border carbon costs mirror domestic ones, manufacturers gain certainty that low-carbon investments will not be undercut by cheaper high-emission alternatives.
• Accelerated innovation: CBAM rewards cleaner production and supports a shift toward recycled and lower-carbon inputs.

Case study: Xeroc and circular construction 

Xeroc exemplifies how CBAM can strengthen circular innovation. The ‘concrete-as-a-service’ model dismantles end-of-life concrete and recovers cementitious fines that are then carbonated to permanently sequester CO₂.

The treated material becomes a supplementary binder that replaces a large portion of virgin cement (‘OPC’) in new concrete and is reused in new concrete, along with the other recovered aggregates.

As CBAM raises the effective cost of imported high-carbon cement, low-carbon secondary binders gain competitive value. Xeroc’s approach therefore aligns perfectly with the policy’s intent: lowering emissions, reducing reliance on virgin extraction and enabling UK producers to offer greener concrete to domestic and EU markets alike.

Future CBAM expansion and polymers

While polymers and their monomers are not included in the first wave of CBAM, they are widely expected to feature in later expansions, particularly in the EU from the late 2020s onward.

Plastics share many characteristics with CBAM-covered materials: they are energy-intensive, fossil-based, globally traded and already regulated under the EU Emissions Trading System. 

Virgin polymer production – PET, polyethylene, polypropylene and others – carries a significant carbon footprint, largely from steam cracking and petrochemical feedstocks. That makes the sector highly exposed to carbon leakage and a natural candidate for border carbon pricing.

The EU has already signalled that its CBAM will broaden to additional ETS-covered sectors after the initial 2026 launch. Chemicals and polymers are consistently highlighted in policy discussions as part of this second phase, with a likely review period between 2026 and 2028 and potential inclusion around 2028-2030.

Once polymers are covered upstream, downstream plastic goods – from packaging to synthetic fibres – would indirectly inherit carbon cost exposure.

For recyclers and circular-economy innovators like Stuff4Life, this could be transformative. Recycled or chemically recovered monomers produced in the UK or EU would gain a major price and carbon advantage over fossil-based imports. 

Companies creating high-purity secondary feedstocks could compete directly with virgin petrochemicals in a CBAM-protected market. 

If the EU moves first, the UK would likely follow post-2030 to avoid disadvantaging its own plastics and recycling sectors. CBAM may therefore evolve into a powerful driver not just for industrial decarbonisation, but for a truly circular polymer economy.

Conclusion

The UK CBAM represents more than a border tax; it is a structural shift in how carbon is accounted for in trade. 

For manufacturers, it offers fairness and protection. For innovators like Xeroc – and for future circular monomer and polymer producers, like Stuff4Life – it creates a growing market premium for materials that cut emissions, lock away carbon and keep industrial value within the UK and aligned export markets.

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A London waste crime gang has been jailed for conspiracy to illegally dump controlled waste across six sites in the capital.

An Environment Agency investigation found that the group carried out a ‘sophisticated and calculated’ criminal operation.

Members of the gang unlawfully occupied six vacant sites across London before using tipper trucks to dump waste on the land.

Despite repeated attempts to disable CCTV equipment and conceal their identities by removing registration plates, wearing masks, stripping identifying labels from waste, nearby cameras, council CCTV, and police body-worn footage captured the gang’s activities in detail.

The gang of four men were found guilty at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court of conspiracy to illegally dump controlled waste, such as tyres and waste from house clearances and construction, following a pattern of offending that spanned a year.

Patrick Doherty was given a 28-month prison sentence, and Martin Ward received 18 months. Michael Ward (also known as Martin McCann) and Simon O’Donnell both received 14 months, suspended for 2 years.

Matt Higginson, Environment Manager for the Environment Agency, commented: “This verdict is justice for residents who have had to endure misery and environmental damage at the hands of this gang.”

“We are laser focused on tackling illegal waste crime and are stepping up action with better intelligence, faster interventions and naming and shaming rogue operators.”

Landowners were left with clean-up bills running into hundreds of thousands of pounds following the gang’s activities.

At Imperial Way in Croydon, the landowner was forced to pay £300,000 in clean-up costs after the gang smashed security cameras and threatened a company representative.

The Environment Agency said that members of the gang threatened a site worker at a separate location, telling them to pay £5,000 or threatening to ‘fill this unit to the brim’. Waste went on to be piled five feet high at the site, which costs £15,000 to clear.

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The government should urgently restrict non-essential uses of ‘forever chemicals’ in products like frying pans and school uniforms, MPs have urged.

Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS or ‘forever chemicals’, are part of a group of more than 10,000 man-made substances.

Due to their highly resistant qualities, they are often used by the military and emergency services, as well as in household products, such as cosmetics and frying pans. 

However, those same qualities mean PFAS can accumulate in the environment and in people’s bodies for decades, with some research suggesting they could be linked to health issues.

MPs are now calling for the government to ban the use of PFAS in items like kitchen equipment and school uniforms.

The warning comes in a new report by the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee, ‘Addressing the risks from Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)’. 

The report says the government should take a ‘precautionary approach’ to approving new PFAS and require companies to gain government approval before introducing a new PFAS substance.  

Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee Toby Perkins MP was critical of the government’s new PFAS Action Plan, saying it does not go far enough.

“It appears to be a plan to eventually have a plan, rather than a concrete set of commitments to reduce and remediate PFAS,” Perkins said.

“The government must also ensure that those who pollute with PFAS pay for the damage they cause. It must consult on establishing a national PFAS Remediation Fund and explore options to truly hold polluters to account. Where no one can be held accountable, local authorities must be given the funds they need to clean up.”

The Committee has warned that regulators could struggle to keep pace with industry if new PFAS substances emerge faster than they can be assessed.

As a solution, MPs say the government should adopt an ‘essential-use’ approach to regulating PFAS and prioritise rapidly restricting the use of PFAS in non-essential applications.

This includes bans on PFAS in non-essential consumer products, such as food packaging, cookware and school uniforms, with a phased restriction from 2027. 

MPs also warn that voluntary action on PFAS or self-regulation by industry are not sufficient to reduce PFAS emissions.

The Committee also recommends that the government applies the ‘polluter pays principle’, to PFAS contamination and consult on establishing a national PFAS Remediation Fund. 

As part of this Fund, it recommends that the government explore the implications of an emissions levy for PFAS.

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A flat rate 20p deposit will apply to all drink containers in scope of the UK’s Deposit Return Scheme when it launches next year.

Anyone purchasing single-use PET plastic, steel and aluminium drinks containers between 150ml and 3 litres will pay the 20p fee at the point of purchase, which is refundable when the empty container is returned at an approved return point.

Exchange for Change, the not-for-profit, industry-led organisation operating the scheme in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, said the fee was a sufficient behavioural incentive, simple to understand, and workable for producers and retailers.

The confirmation of the 20p deposit came after a consultation with industry and economic analysts, as well as studies on the deposit levels in DRS systems globally.

The analysis included behavioural market research to test consumer response to deposit levels ranging from 10p to 30p.

Exchange for Change said it found that deposit levels below 15p are unlikely to provide ‘sufficient incentive’ to help achieve the 90% return rate target over three years. However, it also found that a 30p level could result in a ‘disproportionate consumer cost exposure’.

The analysis also considered the potential of applying a variable deposit value depending on the size of container or material but found this often results in consistently lower return rates on smaller containers. 

Russell Davies, Exchange for Change of CEO, said: “The deposit value is a pivotal part of how the DRS will work in practice. That’s why we’ve engaged widely with industry, undertaken extensive market research and in-depth analysis on how schemes work in other countries.”

“Confirming this now, with just under 18 months to go until the DRS is live, will help producers and retailers with their planning and preparation for the scheme, and we will continue to support them closely throughout this process.”

Commenting on the announcement, Travis Way, managing director at EcoVend, called confirmation of a flat 20p deposit a ‘helpful step forward’ for businesses.

“A flat rate also brings practical benefits for businesses by simplifying implementation, reducing administrative complexity and supporting more consistent system design across retailers, producers and return operators,” Way continued.

“A simple, uniform deposit should also support consumer understanding and mirror other well-established European schemes.”

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What impact will the Circularity in Practice project have? Inspired by King Charles III’s lifelong commitment to the environment, Circular Online examines this new initiative and its potential to reshape sustainable practice.

Circularity in Practice is a voluntary initiative inspired by His Majesty The King’s life-long interest in environmental stewardship.

Signatories commit to collaborate and adopt practical, circular approaches in their everyday operations.

There are 86 official signatories so far, with around 150 businesses attending the launch event at SUEZ’s repair hub in Greater Manchester.

Dr Adam Read MBE, Chief Sustainability & External Affairs Officer at SUEZ UK, told Circular Online the initiative is about building momentum.

“We have been seeing a growing trend in the last 12 months in our commercial customers wanting to donate unused or good quality but unwanted items from their supply chain to good causes to not only improve their environmental KPIs but to demonstrate their commitment to community engagement and social benefit,” he explained.

Dr Read continued that the private sector has significant influence over its own supply chain and competitors, so can make substantial in-roads into developing more circular solutions.

Circular Economy Institute: Why is the initiative important

Amongst the signatories is the Circular Economy Institute (CEI), which provides expert training and certification to equip professionals and entrepreneurs with knowledge to integrate circular principles in their organisations.

Katie Cockburn, Senior Director of Policy Media and Education at CEI, said they were proud to be signing up to the initiative.

“It reinforces our commitment to supporting our members in translating circular principles into practical, measurable outcomes,” Cockburn told Circular Online.

“At CEI, we recognise that the transition to a circular economy depends not only on ambition, but on the capability, leadership and collaboration of skilled professionals working across sectors.”

“By signing, we are underlining our role in setting standards, sharing best practice, and enabling our community to drive meaningful change in their organisations and beyond.”

“We believe that putting circularity into practice is essential to delivering lasting environmental and economic value, and we are committed to equipping our members with the tools, knowledge and networks they need to lead this transition with confidence and impact.”

Dispelling myths around the circular economy

SUEZ have been involved in discussions around the initiative from the beginning and helped to plan how to share examples of best practice.

Sharing these examples, along with toolkits and guidance, is part of a strategy to get more businesses on board and dispel myths around the circular economy.

Dr Read explained that some of the most common barriers to businesses adopting circular principles are the perception of cost, such as thinking pre-loved items and reclaimed materials are more expensive to handle and use.

“For other businesses it is the time needed to investigate alternative solutions to their traditional ones they have been set up to access over many years, and a lack of resources (staff and time) to dedicate to investigating the options out there,” he continued.

“There may have been some experiences with early adopters of more circular solutions that didn’t work or produced an inferior product or service, just like the early days of recycled paper.”

“We need time to work through these experiences and to demonstrate that the current examples are not only fit for purpose but bring huge additional benefits too.”

“And that’s why the Circularity in Practice initiative is so necessary right now, to dispel these myths, showcase great examples and build a new positive dynamic around design for reuse, refurb and upcycling.”

Why does the initiative focus on the built environment?

A key focus of the initiative is on the built environment, which Dr Read explained can often be an ‘untapped mine of value and materials’.

He explained that ‘given the right nudge, profile and support could make significant progress on reducing carbon, reducing resource consumption and delivering green jobs and economic benefits’.

“As a group of founding partners we all felt this was the sweet spot that we could shine a light on, draw attention to and make real progress on outside of any legislative reform or whilst waiting for the Circular Economy Growth Plan – and the initial responses by businesses of all shapes and sizes up and down the country is really positive, so I guess we picked the right materials to focus on!”

There are many examples of circularity being applied in practice that demonstrate how it is commercially viable, many of which are from companies operating in the built environment.

“The refitting of office buildings is a great example of how secondary or reclaimed materials can be utilised to bring character and style to the work environment at the right price point, whilst recognising the obvious environmental benefits and the local social value impacts, like jobs and training, etc.”

“The more we can build sustainable design into new buildings the easier it will be to deconstruct, dismantle, harvest, capture and reuse the materials, such as piping, building materials, and flooring.”

“We have been developing unique offers and services in this space and believe that the Circularity in Practice Initiative will open up many more productive conversations about specific materials and situations that collaboratively we could solve.”

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A company director has been ordered to clear an illegal waste site in Sheffield and pay more than £20,000 in fines and costs.

Austin Fitzgerald, 65, director of Concept Investments Limited in Sheffield, must clear an illegal waste site on land owned by his company by 18 May.

Both the company and Fitzgerald pleaded guilty at South Yorkshire Magistrates’ Court and were ordered to pay over £20,000 in fines and costs. Fitzgerald was also sentenced to a 12-month community order with 140 hours of unpaid work.

The Environment Agency first visited the site in July 2022 and found a large amount of mixed waste, including fridges and other electrical items, as well as inert waste such as soil and stones.

In a follow-up visit later in the year, the Environment Agency told the occupier he could not store waste without a permit and gave him six weeks to clear it.

In January 2023, officers inspected the site and found none of the waste had been cleared, and in fact, new waste had accumulated.

The Agency subsequently served a formal notice requiring the site to be cleared by 5 June 2023, which was not complied with.

In late 2024 and early 2025, the Agency received complaints about waste burning, and the operator was advised by Sheffield City Council to cease the activity, which was impacting local residents.

Another man charged in relation to the same site has pleaded not guilty to operating a regulated facility without an environmental permit, with a trial set to begin on 11 February 2027.

Commenting on the sentencing, Ben Hocking, Area Environment Manager for the Environment Agency in Yorkshire, said:  “It’s clear that Fitzgerald and the company were well aware of what was happening on that land, and they repeatedly ignored our requests to stop operations and clear the waste.”

“Waste criminals damage our communities, and we are cracking down across the sector on those flouting the regulations.”

“This should serve as a warning for landowners that if you allow illegal waste activity to take place on your land, we will take action.”

The company was fined £8,000, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £2,000 and costs of £5,442, while Fitzgerald was ordered to pay costs of £5442 and a victim surcharge of £114.

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Jessica Bradley examines how traditional construction must evolve to design and build infrastructure for a circular economy transition.

The built environment has a big role to play in addressing the challenge of the climate emergency, not least because the design of buildings and infrastructure can optimise the types of materials that will be locked away for decades.

Extracting, manufacturing and producing materials generates around 45% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and moving to renewables can only address half of these emissions. 

This is where the circular economy should step in; however, between 1970 and 2017, the annual global extraction of materials grew from around 27 billion tonnes to 92 billion tonnes, with only around 8.6% of all materials used being cycled back into use.

The design of infrastructure determines its longevity and the overall needs for materials through the lifecycle. As such, infrastructure is a huge component of the circular economy and its logistics, including waste management, material storage and redistribution, modular construction facilities and adaptive reuse of existing buildings. 

But how, exactly, can infrastructure be designed for circularity from the outset? 

Out with the old 

Continuing to work towards net zero carbon for the lifecycle of buildings requires changing approaches to design, material selection and use, experts argue.

Circular principles can be embedded into infrastructure planning and delivery by moving beyond traditional construction models and toward systems that prioritise longevity, adaptability, material transparency and whole-life value.

Traditional infrastructure models are incompatible with circular ambitions for numerous reasons, including supply chain vulnerability – a growing issue for contractors and developers.

Relying on virgin materials makes the sector vulnerable to price fluctuations, whereas circular procurement, material recovery infrastructure and local reuse networks can reduce these risks by shortening supply chains and keeping material value local.

What does circular infrastructure look like? 

Moving beyond traditional infrastructure models is a relatively modest job, says Paul Ekins, professor of resources and environmental policy at UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources and deputy chair of the Circular Economy Taskforce.

“Circularity is basically keeping materials in circulation for longer, which is to do with design,” he says. “So many of the characteristics of materials that will allow them to stay in circulation are decided at the design stage, and you don’t need huge infrastructure for that.”

When designing circular infrastructure, the aim is to source fewer and better quality raw materials and to use resources to favour positive environmental and social outcomes. 

Circular infrastructure also includes modifying existing infrastructure to achieve greater resource efficiency, says sustainability assessment method BREEAM, as well as designing infrastructure assets for material recovery, adaptability and lifecycle optimisation, using principles of reversible design and design for disassembly/deconstruction.

BREEAM emphasises the provision of digital information on construction products, including material passports, to improve access to material and component data to help facilitate reuse and recycling.

Material passports record details of the installation, which can help with the maintenance and dismantling of a building. Alongside this, materials banks will also form a significant piece of the puzzle, experts say. However, it’s argued that the lack of standardisation for the management of material banks is a hurdle.

There are many distinctions between buildings and infrastructure, and while with buildings, you can look to reuse materials, infrastructure is usually quite specific.

This means it’s important to maintain infrastructure properly, says Catherine De Wolf, assistant professor at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zürich.

“A lot of infrastructure needs demolishing because it didn’t get maintained properly, so we have to look at how do we monitor infrastructure to repair and replace things on time,” she says.

This is referred to as ‘slowing the loop’ – a circular strategy that allows infrastructure to be in use for longer.

Several other circular strategies can be used for infrastructure, including ‘narrowing the loop’, which uses fewer materials to build something, and regenerating the loop, which means building something that improves the environment, by using carbon-capturing materials, for example.

However, while there is a lot of research being done on these strategies, there is a lack of drawing on this research, De Wolf says.

“I’m not sure how much, in practice, these experts are listened to,” says De Wolf. 

The answer, she says, is collaborations between policymakers and researchers. 

“Lifecycle assessments are such a complex topic, and there’s a lot of greenwashing from companies,” she says. “To be sure you’re really doing something better for the environment, it’s good to work with academic researchers.”

“But it’s also the job of researchers to reach out to practice and policymakers, to disseminate research outside of academic papers.” 

In this vein, De Wolf has set up DICE Lab, a knowledge-sharing platform for connecting researchers to practice for the transition to the circular economy and digitalisation. 

Enablers of circular infrastructure 

Taking advantage of the opportunities for infrastructure in a circular economy will require significant global systemic change and technological innovation, the Global Infrastructure Hub believes. 

In a thought piece, it argues that policymakers can drive the transition to the circular economy by forming a common strategy with objectives that drive policy, regulation, procurement and financing of infrastructure.

More locally, town and land use planning can also play a role in promoting circular building, via circular public procurement models, by enabling circular economy principles in construction and defining material solutions, argues European climate agency Climate KIC.

In March 2025, the then-climate secretary, Steve Reed, said the UK needs long-term direction on how regulation will develop to support the transition to a circular economy. This is required, he says, to build the infrastructure needed, including for clean energy. 

Edkins visited car manufacturer JLR last year, and heard how it was now optimising the disassembly of vehicles at the end of their life to reuse the parts, after spending 40 years optimising the assembly of vehicles from component parts.

“I think we’re going to see much more of that if the government puts in the right incentives and regulations,” he says. 

Barriers and risks

There are many commercial risks and barriers to implementing circular principles. One reason manufacturers and other businesses are slow to take up circular economy principles is because they can’t yet make a profit from it, says Edkins. 

“Subsidy has some role to play in building up infrastructure,” he says. “But once the infrastructure is there and a company still can’t remain financially viable, it will close, which is precisely what we’re seeing with plastic recycling facilities.”

The lack of economic incentives is making it increasingly difficult for companies to pursue circular principles, even where the ambition is there, says Anika Buchmaier, senior consultant at Buro Happold. 

“There needs to be a rethink around the value of reused materials,” says Buchmaier, who has heard discussions among experts about how the value of new material should be lower than reused materials. 

However, because infrastructure is often publicly owned, the short-termism of politics is often a barrier to long-term thinking around circularity, De Wolf says.

“Usually, politicians are elected every four to five years, and the repair of a bridge is not as exciting to get people to vote for you as building a new bridge. Sometimes, political interests aren’t aligned with circular interests.”

There are also several practical difficulties faced by developers wanting to incorporate used materials, Buchmaier says. 

London has opened a couple of urban mining hubs – where materials can be recovered and reintroduced into the supply chain, including Marks Barfield Architects’ Urban Mining Tondo, which stores dismantled reusable materials from buildings in municipal material centres. 

But not having enough of these hubs is a challenge, because there might be a wide span of time between deconstruction and reusing materials, says Buchmaier. 

“Often, there’s no space for a developer wanting to store materials from something they’ve deconstructed,” she says. 

There are also barriers to gaining warranties for used materials, says Kitty Walker, senior façade engineer at Buro Happold. 

“You might want to build something with a 20-year warranty, but it may be that financers or clients are less likely to warranty something with unknowns,” she says. 

“They might not see the point in taking that risk without knowing the material. It’s about giving clients more confidence with case studies, and doing more testing.”

What must happen next?

Recycling facilities are the biggest kind of new infrastructure we’ll need in the journey towards a circular economy, Edkins says. 

“We’ll need material refurbishment facilities that enable the recovery of a wider group of materials in a far less polluted way, so that these materials can be reused and turned into good quality recyclates,” he says. 

In the waste sector, there are some examples of good practice demonstrating how companies can rethink their approach to materials. The Suez plant in Manchester, Edkins says, has been logging where materials have come from for years, and has designed a programme of separating and reusing materials. 

“It’s an evolution from what one thinks of as the normal activities of a waste management company,” he says. 

More broadly, progressing circular economy principles to infrastructure in the UK will rely on framing it as an economic argument, Edkins says. 

“A lot of work has been done on the circular economy taskforce to look at the extent to which handling these materials in a more circular way makes economic sense,” he says. 

“Studies suggest that increases to GDP can come about from more circular handling of materials. The balance of evidence is that it’s positive for the economy, and can build more resilient supply chains.”

However, reforming the material basis of the economy will take a long time, Ekins adds. 

“It’s only been around 10 years since circularity ideas were being seriously proposed and promulgated by policymakers,” he says. “But we’ve got to go further, and the incentives aren’t yet strong enough.”

Buchmaier is starting to see more start-ups focused on circularity, which she says are building with mycelium and other natural materials. 

“There are a lot more conversations in this space now, and more interest in designing for circularity,” she says.

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The government has created a ‘perverse incentive’ for demolishing buildings over retrofit projects, Don’t Waste Buildings says.

UK construction companies are not charged VAT on new-build housing developments, but face a 20% rate for retrofit projects.

A new report, The Reuse Dividend: Unlocking Economic Growth from Britain’s Existing Buildings, says this creates a ‘perverse incentive for demolition over renovation’.

Produced by voluntary initiative Don’t Waste Buildings (DWB), the report claims this disparity is the ‘single most impactful barrier’ to building reuse.

DWB is calling on the UK government to overhaul the tax system to incentivise the reuse of empty buildings, warning that Britain is missing out on ‘billions of pounds’ of economic growth.

Report lead author and DWB co-founder Richard Nelson commented: “A single empty building on a main street can define whether that street feels alive or forgotten. The opportunity is extraordinary. The only thing stopping us is the way we tax it.”

To increase the reuse of buildings, the report recommends levelling VAT rates and creating targeted grants for struggling high streets and derelict buildings.

The report also calls for tax credits or relief, such as introducing capital gains tax relief and stamp duty discounts, for bringing vacant buildings back into use while meeting sustainability quality measures.

Finally, it recommends establishing long-term low-interest loans with repayment grants for deep reuse projects either through the National Wealth Fund or a similar institution.

Don’t Waste Buildings is a voluntary initiative that works to highlight up-front, or embodied, carbon and advocates for the productive use of empty and underperforming buildings.

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In-scope drinks containers must adopt new barcodes as part of the UK’s Deposit Return Scheme, Exchange for Change has announced.

Individual containers within the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) must display the new barcode so they can be identified in Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) and at Exchange for Change’s counting and sorting facilities.

The requirement was published as part of Exchange for Change’s material specification for drinks containers included in the scheme.

Existing product barcodes will need to be changed, as the new dedicated barcode must be applied to all in-scope products placed on the DRS market.

Exchange for Change is the not-for-profit, industry-led organisation delivering the DRS in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which is set to go live from October 2027. 

The specifications cover drinks containers made from PET plastic, aluminium and steel, ranging in size from 150ml to 3 litres. 

Commenting on the announcement, Russell Davies, CEO of Exchange for Change, said: “The publication of our material specification is a milestone in providing producers with the clarity they need to prepare for the DRS.”

“It sets out in practical terms how packaging should be labelled so it can work effectively within the system from day one. Our focus is on making sure businesses have the time, certainty and support they need.”

Exchange for Change ‘disappointed’ at Wales’s DMO rejection

Exchange for Change has reacted after the Welsh Government rejected its application to become the scheme administrator for Wales’s DRS.

“Industry has always been clear that the right outcome is a fully interoperable DRS across all four nations from October 2027, one that reflects the realities of how the UK retail market operates,” Exchange for Change said in a statement.

“We strongly believe that having one scheme administrator across all countries within the UK is the best way to achieve a scheme that is simple, easy and convenient for everyone.”

According to multiple reports, Exchange for Change is the only organisation to have submitted an application.

The Welsh Government have reopened applications to become the Deposit Management Organisation (DMO) for its DRS, with a new deadline of 2 June 2026.

Exchange for Change confirmed it is now considering appealing the Welsh Government’s decision, and intends to reapply to be appointed the DMO in Wales.

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