Most things we buy follow a straight line: materials are extracted, made into products, used for a while and thrown away. A circular economy tries to turn that line into a loop, so that products are repaired, reused and recycled and their materials come back as input for something new.

No single company can close a loop on its own. A used plastic crate only becomes a new product if someone collects it, someone sorts it, someone recycles it and someone else buys the recycled material. I study these chains of companies and organisations in Limburg, and what makes them work or fall apart.

A value chain covers every step that adds value to a product, from raw material to end user. In a circular value chain the end-of-life stage feeds back into production, which raises new questions: who owns the returned material, who pays for collection and sorting, and when can secondary materials compete with virgin ones on price?

Limburg is an interesting case because it combines heavy industry, such as the chemical cluster around Chemelot, with a large construction sector and a strong manufacturing industry. The province has circular ambitions, and I ask where the real opportunities are, which bottlenecks hold chains back, and what regional policy can do about them.

The project combines a material and sector perspective with a governance perspective. On the material side it uses quick scans, material flow analysis and life cycle assessment, and it focuses on the three regional ecosystems of the CEL4LIFE programme: circular chemistry around Chemelot, circular construction and circular manufacturing.

On the governance side it looks at how provincial circular economy policy is designed and evaluated, including the recent audit by the Zuidelijke Rekenkamer, and at how transition roadmaps and participatory methods such as serious games can align the actors a circular chain depends on.