At the end of the eighteenth century, the French chemist and biologist Antoine de Lavoisier concluded from his many studies that ‘in nature, nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, but everything is transformed.’ This very important finding, which has become the classic Law of Conservation of Mass in modern chemistry, helped us to understand how nature works in terms of maintaining its resources.
Although de Lavoisier was not thinking about economies, the conservation principle of his classic law provides a fundamental inspiration to the circular economy ideal whereby materials in everything we produce are not discarded or wasted. Instead, they are reused or transformed for further use, in the form of either the same product or a different one, in many cycles of production and consumption.
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
