Following this circular economy MOOC was a new and truly valuable experience. I was familiar with ideas like recycling, remanufacturing, product design and new business models, but never had full picture of how they interact. This course gave me exactly that: a broader lens. Instead of thinking in terms of “fixing waste at the end,” it encouraged me to look upstream, at how systems, incentives and design choices shape impacts long before something becomes waste. It reframed circular economy not as a set of tools, but as a way of organizing value within planetary boundaries.
One of the parts that struck me most was the darker side of access. We often celebrate “access-based” models, streaming, car sharing, “product as a service” as modern, smart and sustainable. But the course forced me to ask access for whom, and on whose terms. Access is not neutral. If a company controls access, it also controls: who can enter (and who is excluded),when conditions change (price, rules, data use) and who carries risks and responsibilities.
Circular business models are not automatically “good”. We must look not only at materials and emissions, but also at power, fairness and control. The question “who controls access?” is now stuck in my head every time I see a new “green” business model.
Another big “click” moment was the idea that “the smaller the loop, the greater the value.” Instead of jumping immediately to recycle, the course constantly pushed a hierarchy:
-If it works, keep using it.
-If it breaks, repair it.
-If repair is not enough, remanufacture it.
Recycle only as a last option!
This connects directly with the six design strategies for longer-lasting products. What I like here is how design becomes strategy. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about deciding whether a product will die quickly or stay in use for years. The course made me see every hinge, screw and connector as a political choice about waste and value. The segment on remanufacturing was particularly compelling, especially in the way it connected environmental benefits with real business opportunities. Remanufacturing means taking a used product and then rebuilding it so that: the performance, the lifetime, and the quality are equivalent to a brand-new product.
I found it fascinating that many companies entered remanufacturing “for the money” to save materials and production costs and only later realized the environmental benefits. It shows that circular strategies can be economically attractive first, and ecologically beneficial as a consequence, which is often more convincing for industry. The course also pointed out the real obstacles: second-hand still has a bad image, modern electronics are difficult to test, and some regulations still treat remanufactured products almost like waste. These issues are small on paper but decisive in practice.
From my perspective, remanufacturing is now one of the most promising inner loops because it turns existing products into a reservoir of valuable materials instead of a disposal challenge.
Waste = food… but only if we are honest about complexity
The “Waste = Food” part brought the framework to life. By tracing actual streams such as fridges, electronics and textiles, it demonstrated how different materials metals, plastics, fibers can be captured and fed back into the economy rather than lost as waste. But what I appreciated most was honesty: circularity is hard.
– A “100% cotton” T-shirt is not automatically safe for composting if dyes and finishes are toxic.
– Many clothes are made from fiber blends, which makes them technically difficult to recycle.
– Biological cycles and technical cycles need completely different strategies.
Tools like Fibersort, automatically sorting textiles by fiber composition made me see how data and automation are essential if we want high-quality recycling, not just “feel-good” recycling bins.
Looking back, this MOOC changed the way I think more than I expected. It clarified how access shapes power, how design locks in tomorrow’s impact and how inner loops like remanufacturing protect value. But more importantly, it gave me a practical mindset: to see materials, products and systems as moving over long lifetimes and to understand that change happens by redesign, not by reacting at the end.
In the end, the course didn’t just add new concepts, it helped me develop a more coherent and systemic way of seeing the world.
About DEA ZAKOLLI
Hi! I’m an Industrial & Environmental Chemist (B.Sc. + M.Sc., Albania) with five years experience in the mining industry. In 2024 I began a Master in Advanced Materials & Circular Economy in Madrid to go deeper into life-cycle assessment, materials recovery, and circular process design. I combine careful lab work with a practical mindset and I’m excited to keep growing. My goal is simple: use solid data to improve efficiency and build more circular, real-world solutions. Open to collaborations and roles where analytical excellence meets circular innovation.
