On October 24, 2018, the "Annual Meeting beCircular" took place in Brussels, Av. Port 86C, in the Tour et Taxis building complex. Some 400 people participated, representatives of interested organisations or individuals. Mundus maris was represented by Marianne Braun.
The Brussels Community is owner of an impressive building, modern architecture, natural and sustainable building materials, very bright, which is entirely dedicated to the eco-circular economy. There are many "start ups" who have rented space to develop a new idea.
The activity of the small units of production, administration and marketing focuses on the following areas:
1. Economics of functionality or use. The latter favours the use of a product rather than ownership in order to reduce the extraction of resources.
2. 
Upcycling. The principle is to recover and transform an object or material that is used again in a new object of higher quality.
3. Requalification. Any operation by which products or components are used again for a purpose different from that for which they were designed.
4. Reuse. Any operation by which products or components are used again for identical use before they have become waste.
5. Eco-design. The principle is to integrate environmental criteria right from the design of a product or service and throughout its life cycle.
6. Recycling or recovery. Any recovery operation by which the waste is reprocessed into products, materials or substances for the purpose of their original function or for other purposes.
7. Repair or restoration. Any operation that consists of restoring a damaged object to enable it to perform its useful function again.
8. Zero waste or waste reduction. Movements that aim to reduce the amount of our waste to a negligible proportion.
9. Short circuits or localism. Product marketing mode by which intermediaries between the producer and the consumer are limited.
10. Industrial ecology or eco-management. Practice to limit the impact of a production ecosystem on the environment through cooperation and pooling of flows or equipment on a territory.
11. Sharing economy or the collaborative economy. A new mode of consumption that favours the exchange and sharing of goods or services for free or for a fee.
The programme began in the morning with a field visit to find out about good examples of the types of approaches mentioned above. After a vegetarian meal the afternoon was dedicated to issues of philosophy and politics of the circular economy.
The BeCircular Center launches the programme called greenlab.brussels that accelerates environmental entrepreneurship and the circular economy. Startups that benefit for 6 months have the support of technical assistance and several other benefits.
The programmee has been in existence since 2016 and inspired the city of Paris in the adoption of its circular economy plan for 2017-2020.
Many of the ideas presented had good potential to protect the ocean through waste reduction, better use of raw materials and materials in the production processes of goods and services. All this scaled up helps to slow down or thwart the current widespread waste. Case to follow!
Text and photos by Marianne Braun
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