Week 1: Introduction to the Circular Economy

Unit 4: Designing Out Waste

Designing out waste
Content overview

▪ The waste problem

▪ Recycling is not the answer
▪ Circular design principles
▪ Waste is a consequence of decisions at
the design stage
▪ Strategies for designing out waste

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Designing out waste
The waste problem

Overall: only 8.6% of the worlds resources

are reused or recycled
(Circularity Gap Report, 2020)

According to the World Economic Forum:

▪ 8 million tons of plastic waste leak into the
ocean each year. (WEF)
▪ By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in
the ocean – if we do not take urgent, collective
action.

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Image: https://pixabay.com
Designing out waste
The waste problem

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Designing out waste
Recycling is not the only answer

▪ The classic approach to tackling a problem like

waste is to promote more recycling.
▪ Recycling has it’s place—enhanced with things
like regulation or deposit schemes—but we will
learn in this course that actually there’s a better
approach…

The principles we want to promote in a

circular economy are:
1. Design out waste and pollution
2. Keep materials in use
3. Regenerate natural systems

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Designing out waste
Waste is a consequence of decisions at the design stage

Waste and pollution are not

accidents, but the consequences of
decisions made at the design stage,
where 80% of environmental impacts
are determined.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Check out the 2020 Circular Design Project https://globaldesignforum.com/video

where SAP, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and the London Design Festival examine this problem.
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Designing out waste
Strategies for designing out waste

▪ Convert physical product to service

(convert “consumer” to “user”) – usage and
performance based

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Designing out waste
Strategies for designing out waste

▪ Convert physical product to service

(convert “consumer” to “user”) – usage and
performance based
▪ Dematerialization

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Designing out waste
Strategies for designing out waste

▪ Convert physical product to service

(convert “consumer” to “user”) – usage and
performance based
▪ Dematerialization
▪ Design products that last – emotionally and
physically

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Designing out waste
Strategies for designing out waste

▪ Convert physical product to service

(convert “consumer” to “user”) – usage and
“The next big thing in
performance based
▪ Dematerialization
design is circular.”
▪ Design products that last – emotionally and
physically The Ellen MacArthur Foundation
▪ Design products to be circular https://www.circulardesignguide.com/

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Designing out waste
Further links and material

▪ Circularity Gap Report https://www.circularity-gap.world/2020

▪ SAP and Global Plastic Action Partnership
https://news.sap.com/2020/01/cleaner-ocean-sap-joins-global-
plastic-action-partnership/
▪ Ellen MacArthur Foundation guide to Circular Design:
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/explore/circular-
design
▪ Circular Design Guide: https://www.circulardesignguide.com/
▪ SAP, EMF, and London Design Festival videos:
https://news.sap.com/2020/10/circular-design-project-shape-
better-future/ and https://globaldesignforum.com/video
▪ The Circular Economy: A Wealth of Flows, 2nd Edition
(Ken Webster, 2017) – Chapter 3, pages 48-53
▪ Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
(Michael Braungart and William McDonough, 2009)

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