Trash to Treasure: Changing Waste Streams to Profit Streams, a new report launched by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, focuses on waste in American companies and industries, and argues that the circular economy represents an economic opportunity, as well as being a model that reduces waste.
The largest 5589 publicly trading businesses in the U.S. sent 342 million metric tons of waste to landfills and incinerators in 2014, according to the report, an economic cost to those companies in terms of removal, and a reality that also has significant environmental and social impacts.