The life-cycle of a product begins with design, then proceeds through manufacture, distribution, use and then follows through the waste hierarchy’s stages of reduce, reuse and recycle.

Each of the above stages of the life-cycle of a product offers opportunities for policy intervention, to rethink the need for the product, to redesign to minimize waste potential, to extend its use.

The key behind the life-cycle of a product is to optimize the use of the world’s limited resources by avoiding the unnecessary generation of waste.

Current, global, economic growth and development can not be sustained with the current production and consumption patterns.

Globally, we are extracting more resources to produce goods than the planet can replenish.

Resource efficiency is the reduction of the environmental impact from the production and consumption of these goods, from final raw material extraction to last use and disposal.