TEHRAN — Green and circular economies are effective mechanisms which can help protect the environment, chief of the Department of Environment (DOE) Masoumeh Ebtekar said.

In contrast to a linear economy [which is a ‘take, make, dispose’ model of production] or brown economy [which depends only on petrochemicals and is a major driver of environmental degradation], circular economy is restorative and regenerative by design, and aims to keep products, components, and materials by either recycling them into useful products or return them to the environment, Ebtekar explained.

“Annually some 10 million cellphones are being discarded in Iran due to emergence of new technologies and it is essential to work out this problem before we face vast amount of electronic waste as throwing away waste is neither logical nor economical,” DOE website quoted her as saying on Tuesday.

“Production of plastics and chemicals has thrown the environment out of balance and we should come up with new technologies to recycle all such materials,” she suggested.

She went on to say that “circular economy aims at keeping all resources at their highest utility and value as one day all natural resources would all disappear in case we ignore recycling.”

Elsewhere in her remarks the environment chief pointed out that “in addition to circular economy the green economy indicates that people can achieve the highest economic production and together with a minimum of emissions as well as with less resources consumption and environmental costs.”

“By the means of green economy we can recycle the natural resources and ultimately realize a mode of economic development which can merge the economic benefits with environmental and social ones,” she stated.

“While the brown economy considers the natural resources as obstacles hindering economic growth the green economy would help us to move towards sustainable development,” she said, adding, “at first it may seem difficult to change economic strategies, but we need to change our attitudes toward environment and move to more eco-friendly approaches.”

MQ/MG