Bega Valley in SE coast of NSW has impressively declared its intention to become locally "circular". We're going to hear this phrase more than "sustainable" soon as its definition requires a geographic boundary to be set.
As explained on their website: https://lnkd.in/gxcYqMVp
"A circular economy is one in which a corporate, city or region keeps resources in use for as long as possible, extracting the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of their life. All materials are kept in a ‘close loop’ right along the value chain all the way to consumption."
Circular economies will become more important as countries and business start to see the carbon footprint cost of their materials (i.e. imports) and also the trend toward political nationalism replacing globalisation. Countries will look for "at-risk" foreign dependancies like we've seen with skyrocketing fertiliser costs. Becoming circular at any level (whether council, region, national, etc) means being self-sufficient at that level.
Taking a purist view on this means that nutrients leaving farms in food product need to be returned from humans back to agriculture. Yes human waste. However, the problem isn't the "yuk" factor of poo but rather we humans are contaminated by our modern life.
Human waste contains medical traces such as chemotherapy, behavioural drugs, hormone treatment, recreational drugs, microplastics and PFAS (a forever chemical that is in our clothes, frying pans and pizza boxes). Without somehow treating this waste and making it suitable for return to agriculture, we will never have a circular food system.