Ecoforum

The VII edition of “Ecoforum. The markets of the circular economy” promoted by Legambiente, La Nuova Ecologia and Kyoto Club was held in Rome on 21 and 22 October 2020.

The circular economy represents an industrial model that provides that all waste can become a resource to be introduced into the production cycle to obtain new goods.

The circular economy provides for the creation of wealth through the reuse of waste provided from the beginning of the manufacturing process for the enhancement and reduction of waste

According to data collected by the Ipsos “Circular Economy in Italy” survey, 76% of respondents know the concept of sustainability and 40% the principles underlying the circular economy.

In Italy, the circular economy can play an important role in the new context of health and economic crisis we are experiencing, because it can create new jobs, bring savings for businesses and benefits for the quality of the environment (between 2% and 4%). % of the cut in greenhouse gas emissions). The important opportunity to help our country get out of such a difficult period is for Italian politics to focus on the circular economy, making it one of the pillars of the Italian Recovery Plan. This was the central theme of the Ecoforum.

What is normally destined to be discarded and dispersed in the environment is instead reused and enhanced in this case so that from waste it becomes a resource. This is the circular economy model in agriculture, whose goal is to give a second life to different types of food waste, thus limiting the production of waste.

Sustainable agriculture aims not to alter the environmental balance and presents itself as respectful of the environment and socially just, helping to improve the quality of life of both farmers and society as a whole.

But that’s not all: the opportunity to use sub-calibers instead of fresh products makes it possible to no longer subtract land from crops and to reduce production costs, thanks to the reuse of raw materials.

We are also seeing applications of the circular economy in the cosmetics sector. These mainly concern the production of the ingredients contained in cosmetic products.

Valuable raw materials from the agri-food industry (non-edible fractions), which would otherwise be disposed of, are recovered and used in the production of cosmetics.

The list of food residues that can be used for the production of natural cosmetics is long: from tomato peels to apple pieces, from the remains of olive oil processing to those of fruit juices.

We can define this cosmetic sector as “agribeauty”, in which precious waste raw materials are recovered and enhanced.