Adaptation of a Zero Waste System into the Circular Economy's ReSOLVE framework: potential and barriers in a retail store in Mexico City

At different stages (from harvest to consumption) the food is thrown away even if it is still edible. This fact is having significant impact on the current food system posing many uncertainties on environmental liabilities as... [ view full abstract ]

At different stages (from harvest to consumption) the food is thrown away even if it is still edible. This fact is having significant impact on the current food system posing many uncertainties on environmental liabilities as in many countries organic waste is buried in landfill locations. As an example of this situation, Mexico reported that about 96% of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is still disposed of in landfills. 50% of the total of the disposed MSW is attributed to organic components. Thus, Mexico’s current waste management system is considerably lagging in recycling, energy recovery and offers little regulatory incentive to avoid food being disposed of. In that sense, some companies are concerned about their impacts throughout the value chain as well as their corporate reputation facing the consumer. Trying to address the above-mentioned problematic, this study aims to elucidate a framework that can improve the organic waste management in a Mexican retail corporation by combining a circular business model and a Zero Waste system. This was done by integrating the Zero Waste philosophy into the ReSOLVE framework proposed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013), as the conceptual framework method employed towards a circular business model. As a result, the recorded information in the retail store identified two main groups of food waste at the organic end-of-life chain: 1) fruits and vegetables; and 2) bakery and pastry. Approximately 95% of the food waste stream were fruits and vegetables. The remaining of the food waste stream were mainly cakes, bread and crackers. Afterwards, the Zero Waste principles applied to this type of organic materials were translated to four management streams: (i) reduction, (ii) donation, (iii) animal feeding, and (iv) anaerobic digestion. Later, all of them were incorporated into a circular business model for the case study in hand. After applying these framework, findings showed that most of the food considered as waste can be recovered through different stages. It also showed the benefits of managing the food waste by saving about 40% of the food waste management costs through 3 business actions associated to those recovery stages. Potentials for this type of integrative managerial approach are foreseen optimistic as it can motivate the development of circular business models/actions for other type of discharged materials from the technical loops (MacArthur, 2013) e.g. clothing, electronics, among others. The barriers for this study to be implemented in a short-term are related mainly to financial constraints and Mexican current legislation. Although, the key concepts and benefits of the Zero Waste system and Circular Economy principles have been available for many years, very often the technical-environment-financial relationship are misaligned which have resulted in not circular systems, so far. Therefore, the results of this study contribute to raising awareness among different stakeholders regarding not only the economic losses associated to food waste but also to address the ethical dilemma posed by just simply throwing away food that might be returned in the value chain.