● Anthropogenic circularity science is an emerging interdisciplinary field.
● Anthropogenic circularity was one effective strategy against metal criticality.
● Carbon neutrality is becoming the new industry paradigm around the world.
● Growing circularity could potentially minimize the CO2 emission.
Resource depletion and environmental degradation have fueled a burgeoning discipline of anthropogenic circularity since the 2010s. It generally consists of waste reuse, remanufacturing, recycling, and recovery. Circular economy and “zero-waste” cities are sweeping the globe in their current practices to address the world’s grand concerns linked to resources, the environment, and industry. Meanwhile, metal criticality and carbon neutrality, which have become increasingly popular in recent years, denote the material's feature and state, respectively. The goal of this article is to determine how circularity, criticality, and neutrality are related. Upscale anthropogenic circularity has the potential to expand the metal supply and, as a result, reduce metal criticality. China barely accomplished 15 % of its potential emission reduction by recycling iron, copper, and aluminum. Anthropogenic circularity has a lot of room to achieve a win-win objective, which is to reduce metal criticality while also achieving carbon neutrality in a near closed-loop cycle. Major barriers or challenges for conducting anthropogenic circularity are deriving from the inadequacy of life-cycle insight governance and the emergence of anthropogenic circularity discipline. Material flow analysis and life cycle assessment are the central methodologies to identify the hidden problems. Mineral processing and smelting, as well as end-of-life management, are indicated as critical priority areas for enhancing anthropogenic circularity.
Anthropogenic circularity is the human activity to enclose the material circular utilization, which is mainly consisting of reuse, remanufacturing, recycling, and recovery.
Anthropocene
The anthropocene is the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on our earth.
Anthroposphere
The anthroposphere (also referred as technosphere) is that part of the environment that is made or modified by human for use in human activity and human habitats.
Carbon neutrality
Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions.
Circular economy
A circular economy is an economic model designed to minimize resource input, as well as waste and emission production.
Criticality
Criticality is the quality, state, or degree of being of the highest importance.
Emergy analysis
Emergy analysis is a type of embodied energy analysis that can provide common units for comparison of environmental and economic goods by summing the energy of one type required directly or indirectly for production of goods.
Home scrap
Home scrap is the originated scrap that is utilized within the plant.
New scrap
New scrap is the solid waste generated from manufacturing process.
Old scrap
Old scrap is the solid waste generated from product consumption.
Recyclability
Recyclability is the theoretical probability of an item's being recycled.
Urban mining
Urban mining is the process of reclaiming raw materials from waste products sent to landfill.
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