What is the Circular Economy?
♻️ What Is a Circular Economy (And Why Should You Care?)
By Lisa Carroll – Founder, The Upcycled Soap Company
At The Upcycled Soap Company, we talk a lot about circles. Not just because of our round soaps or our tagline (Break the Cycle, Build the Circle), but because we believe the future depends on them.
To understand what we mean, let’s take a quick walk through two very different systems:
🔄 The Circular Economy
Imagine this:
You pick an orange off a tree. You eat it. The peel goes into your compost, becomes soil, feeds another tree. That tree grows another orange. And the cycle continues—no waste, just renewal.
That’s the circular economy.
It’s a system designed to mimic nature—where everything is reused, repurposed, or regenerated. Nothing is wasted. Everything has value.
In a circular economy:
- Products are designed to last or be reused
- Materials are recycled or upcycled, not thrown away
- Businesses prioritize regeneration over extraction
- We focus on sharing, repairing, and rethinking our consumption
At its heart, the circular economy says: We don’t need to make more—we need to use what we already have, better.
➡️ The Linear Economy (AKA the Old Way)
Now, let’s look at the system we’re all used to.
It goes like this: Take → Make → Waste.
We extract resources (like oil, minerals, palm oil, water), turn them into products (soap, clothes, phones), and then toss them out when we’re done—often after just one use. Most of it ends up in landfill. Or worse, the ocean.
This system is fast. It’s cheap.
And it’s completely unsustainable.
In a linear economy:
- Resources are finite but treated like they’re infinite
- Products are made for disposal, not durability
- Waste is built into the business model
- We lose sight of what it costs the planet to create something new
It’s a straight line that ends in a dead end—for ecosystems, for communities, and for future generations.
🌍 Why It Matters
Australia generates over 7.6 million tonnes of food waste every year.
That’s enough to fill the MCG ten times over.
And 70% of it is perfectly edible or usable.
Instead of being repurposed, much of it ends up in landfill—where it releases methane, a greenhouse gas 25x more potent than CO₂.
We don’t have a waste problem—we have a design problem.
And the circular economy is the solution.
🧼 What We’re Doing at The Upcycled Soap Company
We’re not perfect. But we’re passionate.
We take surplus beer, wine, coffee, and fruit peels that would otherwise be discarded—and transform them into beautiful, nourishing bars of soap. Not just to clean skin, but to clean up the way we think about value.
We believe that waste is just a resource waiting to be rediscovered.
And that small actions—like washing your hands—can ripple out and shift systems.
We’re building a future where businesses are built on circles, not straight lines.
💚 Want to Learn More?
Together, we can break the cycle of waste—and build a better one in its place.
With love and lather,
Lisa Carroll
Founder, The Upcycled Soap Company