From Waste Costs to Resource Value: Economic Incentives for Industrial Symbiosis in Uzbekistan

Abstract

The circular-economy transition depends not only on recycling technologies but also on economically viable agreements that allow one enterprise to use another enterprise’s residual materials. This article examines the transaction-cost, incentive and risk barriers to industrial symbiosis in Uzbekistan and proposes an enterprise-level resource-exchange mechanism for the AI Circular Ecosystem research initiative. The analysis combines the industrial-symbiosis literature, ISO guidance and Uzbekistan’s waste-management and green-economy policy documents. A proposed net-exchange-surplus test considers avoided primary-material expenditure and disposal costs against processing, transport, testing and contracting expenditures. A clearly hypothetical example illustrates why material matching alone is insufficient for investment decisions. The paper recommends verified material passports, standardized resource-exchange agreements, transparent benefit-sharing rules, staged financial incentives and performance monitoring. Unlike national municipal-waste indicators, the proposed enterprise metrics would measure commercially feasible secondary-resource exchanges and their demonstrable effects. The article offers a policy-oriented conceptual contribution; no platform implementation or observed firm-level economic effects are claimed.