Interest in Material Cycle Closure? Exploring Evolution of Industry's Responses to High-grade Recycling from an Industrial Ecology Perspective

Abstract: Many anthropogenically-produced or beneficiated materials contained in “end-of-life” products retain a great proportion of the invested manufacturing work when discarded. Very few such materials are reconstituted and applied in new products at the same material inherent quality level as in their first lifetime – a process known as “closed-loop recycling”. In general, industrial society maintains an extract, expend, expel modus operandi despite demonstrated “loop closure” feasibility for a significant number of materials. This thesis builds from a foundation in Industrial Ecology, a field prescribing to an ecological metaphor for how paradigmatic change might take place towards closure of material-energy cycles. It utilises three detailed case studies of loop closure work to develop a conceptual framework describing behaviour of industrial actors when faced with the opportunity, or need, to innovate for material cycle closure. This work helps answer questions about why work towards closure for “promising” material cycles may not be progressing, where key barriers lie, and how measures might be implemented to encourage the evolution of industrial conduct towards more widespread closed-loop recycling.