Without recycling, there can be no circular economy. Without a circular economy, we cannot build environmentally sustainable cities. Without sustainable cities, we’d better start looking for another planet.

A matchmaking program pairs Sustainability Management students with industry leaders aspiring to make positive changes.

Burning garbage to produce electricity is a strategy for sustainable waste management that is finding favor in Europe and China. Why isn’t it practiced more in the U.S.?

While the reduction and eventual elimination of fossil fuel use is a key element of such an economy, so too are the public policies and public-private partnerships needed to collect and reuse discarded products and packages. Bag bills and bottle bills can help develop these capacities. In most of the United States, these ideas have not taken hold and are generally seen as unneeded government intervention in the free market.

Many cities around the world are implementing innovative measures to deal with waste, and are increasingly incorporating waste management into sustainability plans. Some cities are setting positive examples through aggressive recycling and zero waste programs.

We need to develop the public policies and standard operating procedures to make certain that discarded electronics are either recycled or carefully discarded. This requires that we abandon the idea that “out of sight is out of mind.”