From cereal boxes to our distinct milk bags, Canadians have been told that one of the best things we can do for the planet is to embrace the circular economy — reusing, repurposing or reallocating assets to ensure they’re kept within useful circulation as long as possible, and ideally forever.
Originally conceptualized as recycling, we are all familiar with the good feeling that comes from tossing paper, plastic and other materials into the blue bin rather than throwing them in a landfill. It’s time to consider applying an expanded version of this approach to what we call energy landscapes.
Considering the thousands of square kilometres that we have carved, scraped and bulldozed to produce the energy we crave, it is past time we started figuring out how we can recycle energy landscapes and make them useful for new purposes.