In 10 years materials passing through the municipality will be upcycled (recycled at the same quality). How do we do that?
This was the challenge question posted at the end of the “Designing out Landfills” workshop organized on Thursday 20th January by the United Kingdom Embassy in The Hague, in The Netherlands.
The Desycle Foundation (represented by LSDP), together with other companies and organizations such as Van Gansewinkel, Sita, Milgro, Delft University, UK Science and Innovation Network and Environmental Sustainability, KTN (amongst many interesting others) where invited to exchange knowledge and experiences. The main goal of this workshop was to find opportunities to work together on tackling the ‘waste issues’ in a sustainable way.
It has been very rewarding to share with other organizations the Desycling Strategy and how it is implemented as a design integrated approach in The Netherlands to tackle waste cycle issues. Our ambition is to work together with other organizations, government and end consumers in transforming the waste cycle into a sustainable one.
How are we going to do this? Well, we are not sure if we will be able to do it in ten years, but we concluded these are some of the most important actions that need to be done to make this happen as soon as possible:
- Recognize that waste is a potentially valuable resource that is still largely un-utilized
- To change this there is a great need to stimulate innovation towards an integrated approach.
- Designers work closely with companies that are part of the consumer product chains, marketing, innovation promoters, knowledge institutions and policy makers.
-Work with interdisciplinary teams to solve problems ‘on the spot’.
-Change people’s perception about waste and their interaction with it in a practical way. This can be carried out through design interventions targeted at creating awareness and knowledge transfer in a practical way to create a ‘new normality’ that benefits the waste cycle.
-Transfer knowledge to designers about product life cycle, do’s and don’ts about materials .There is an urgent need on defining guidelines on the design, production and usage of materials and services.
-Open source evaluation. By having clear guidelines that are also translated to a simple daily language, we will all be able to evaluate and demand better products and services.
A lot to do and we really need to work together to make it happen.