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CircularJourney

2017 to 2047

The programme

It starts in 2017, nine years before Circular Journey existed, because that is when the work started and where the questions came from. The programme itself runs 2026 to 2047 — a long horizon, set deliberately. Most of what is worth learning about a waste system only becomes visible after a decade of operation, and most of what is worth learning about an adaptation only becomes visible after the funding stops.
  1. 2017Origin

    Where the work started

    RecyclingBazar is founded in Bihar, collecting recyclable material from institutions, businesses and other bulk generators. Circular Journey does not exist yet and will not for another nine years. This is the operational decade the research questions came out of.

  2. 2026BuildNow

    Build the platform and the network

    The year with no field research in it. Everything built now exists so that the research, when it starts, can be published quickly, cited properly and compared across countries.

    • Launch circularjourney.org with the research framework published in full.
    • Set the 22-point framework applied to every country.
    • Open the Atlas structure, including the compulsory limitations sections.
    • Begin outreach to prospective host organizations for the 2027 missions.
    • Publish the source register and the evidence-labelling rules.
  3. 2027Explore

    First field missions

    Southeast Asia first: Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Five countries where the same problems are being solved under very different constraints.

  4. 2028Adapt

    Europe, East Asia, and the India question

    Widen the evidence base, then turn to the harder problem: working out honestly what Indian conditions would demand of any model worth importing.

  5. 2029Convene

    A summit in India, proposed

    Bring the network together in one place. The point is not the event; it is that by 2029 there should be something worth convening about. Proposed rather than fixed: it depends on the research, the partners and the funding, and the year may move.

  6. 2030Scale

    Extend what held

    Pilots that worked are extended; pilots that did not are written up and closed. Both outcomes are published, because a body of evidence that only records successes is not evidence.

  7. 2035Extend

    A standing body of evidence

    By the mid-2030s the Atlas should be useful to someone who has never heard of Circular Journey: a practitioner looking up how a system works, and what it costs.

  8. 2047Contribute

    Twenty-one years of public evidence

    India marks a centenary year with a stated national vision. Circular Journey is independent of that programme. What it can offer by then is a long, honest record of what was tried, what worked, and what did not.

Why so long

A three year project would capture launches. Launches are the least informative part of a waste system, because almost everything launches well.

The interesting question is what a scheme looks like in year five, when the pilot funding has ended, the person who championed it has moved on, and the equipment needs replacing. Answering that requires being around long enough to go back.

It also means this site will look sparse for a while. That is the correct appearance for a project that has not done the work yet.

What has actually been measured