CLIC RECYCLE at the 3rd Congrés Catalunya Circular: Exploring the full scope of the circular economy

CCIB Barcelona, 28–29 October 2026

The 3rd Congrés Catalunya Circular brought together professionals, companies, researchers and public institutions to discuss the challenges and opportunities of moving towards a more circular economic model. CLIC RECYCLE attended the congress to follow the talks, learn about current progress in circularity and exchange perspectives with other participants.

Throughout the sessions, the congress approached the circular economy from a broad, interconnected perspective. The discussions explored how decisions made across a material's life cycle affect resource use, environmental impact and waste generation, highlighting the need for different fields of knowledge to work together.

Considering the whole life cycle of materials

Circularity starts long before a material becomes waste. It includes the resources used to produce it, how products are designed and manufactured, how they are distributed and used, and the options for repair, reuse and recovery at the end of their life.

Understanding this whole journey takes more than one discipline. Designers, engineers, materials scientists, manufacturers, researchers and waste-management specialists each bring a different perspective. Their collaboration is essential to identify opportunities, anticipate limitations and develop solutions that take a material's whole life cycle into account.

This multidisciplinary approach also shows the need to go beyond isolated recycling initiatives and consider how decisions made at one stage affect the next.

From resource management to the final destination of waste

Waste management was another key topic. The transition to circularity requires solutions that address not only waste prevention and recycling, but also materials that cannot be recovered and the environmental consequences of their final destination, including landfill.

Understanding what happens to materials throughout this process is essential to find ways to reduce waste, use resources more efficiently and keep materials in circulation for as long as possible.

It also reinforces the importance of connecting knowledge from different fields. Waste-management challenges cannot be tackled separately from product design, industrial processes, materials innovation and public policy. Progress depends on cooperation between the people and organisations involved at each stage.

Why multidisciplinary collaboration matters

For CLIC RECYCLE, the process starts with collecting keratin from hair salons, a material that would otherwise be thrown away. Together with industrial hemp and other plant fibres, this recovered resource goes into the development of new materials and applications. Developing new materials requires knowledge from many fields, from understanding material properties and developing applications to considering manufacturing processes, environmental behaviour and end-of-life scenarios.

No single discipline can address all these questions. Collaboration between designers, scientists, engineers, industrial partners and other specialists is what allows materials innovation to move beyond an initial concept and respond to real-world challenges.

Attending the 3rd Congrés Catalunya Circular was an opportunity to follow these discussions, learn from different perspectives and connect with people working across the circular economy.

Building a circular economy means considering the whole life cycle of materials and bringing different disciplines together to rethink it.