Cycling urban material flows: using waste as resources. Lessons from Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen & Madrid -- Urban Studies

Since the Industrial Revolution great socio-metabolic transitions have occurred changing radically our consumption and production patterns. In fact, the introduction of waste in our societies has opened the material cycle creating thus a material chain with two ends respectively resources extraction and waste generation. Material use and more particularly consumption in linear flows are the main causal factors for most environmental issues. In addition, even if resource extraction and waste generation are decoupling from economic growth, this decoupling remains relative and sheer figures are still rising. Therefore the main interest of this research is to seek for potential solutions that could cycle urban material flows by using waste as resources. By studying the two material ends, a number of different paths to reach cyclical urban metabolism and potentially eradicate waste from our urban systems are presented, namely design, production and consumption patterns, urban planning and policy making.