3 ways to avoid waste 'recycling'
and become more sustainable
‘Recycling’
The term ‘recycling’ has been in use in a broader or generic sense to indicate any activity to recover materials from a wasted resource in the production life cycle. Specifically, it means the activity of treating materials & products using a process so that they can be used again.
Why should you avoid waste recycling ?
Over the years, recycling is being used and is deemed to mitigate the problem of environmental pollution. However, recycling, which is the last step in the process is not the most efficient or productive .
Repairing – not recycling – is the first step to tackling e-waste from smartphones. Here’s why.
Instead if we repair, reuse or refurbish before recycling , the waste re-enters the cycle and value chain earlier. This ties in with the concept of zero waste . To achieve the goal of zero or minimum waste, material should not reach a landfill as and if this is not practically possible, minimize it. The effort today to make this happen is to move from a linear to a circular economy. Recycling does not meet this objective and falls one stage short.
3 ways of being sustainable without recycling
Repair
Or maintain, the aim is to prolong the life of the product.
Repair means to restore by replacing or putting together what is torn or broken, to restore to a good working order. It involves fixing , such as table, chair, etc. to regain previous functionality. e.g. broken electrical appliances can be repaired to work well like before. This might be better than dumping them to buy new ones, wasting global resources.
Sharing is an example which uses existing resources more productively and reduces the quantum required globally. In a sense it helps prolong the life cycle of the product which is achieved by using an appropriate business model.
Examples: Airbnb, Paboco
Paboco produces paper bottles to replace plastic bottles, essentially prolonging the life of the product.
Reuse
Or Return, Redistribute, Repurpose,
It is the act of using a product over and over again to extract the maximum benefit from it, before breaking it down to its constituent parts and ‘recycling’ it. It may be for its original purpose or a different function. Rather than throwing them, new uses may be found for thereby reducing the consumption of resources.
Examples: Circos, Gerrard Street
Circos operates in reusing kids and maternity wear. Gerrard Street produces headphones with repairs and replacement built in or a subscription model.
Or Remanufacture, Recondition, Overhaul
It is to renovate, remake, revise, or renew thoroughly. It is to rebuild or replenish with all new material; to restore to original (or better) working order and appearance.
Examples Caterpillar ,Johnson Controls, Royal DSM
For Caterpillar Cat Reman returns products at the end of their serviceable lives to same-as-new condition. Johnson Controls is servicing used batteries and Royal DSM is into using Bio based materials sourcing.
The above methods are specifically applicable for ‘Technical materials’ ( those which do not compost, go to the landfill ultimately if not returned in the cycle ) in contrast to ‘Biological Materials’( those that enrich natural systems).From an environmental perspective, handling the waste due to Technical materials is a more serious issue as these are not biodegradable and will necessarily go to the landfill if not handled prior to reaching it.
In the context of wastage of resources, danger of its depletion and non-availability or scarcity the measures of repair, reuse and refurbish assume significant importance. For e.g. Indium, which is the raw material used for touch screens in smart phones & other LCD displays will last only for 12 years at the current rate of mining and consumption.
The options of repair - reuse - refurnish or recycle ( as a last resort ) follow a hierarchy in terms of its preference in moving to a circular economy from a linear economy with repair being the most preferred and beneficial while refurbish or recycle the least.
Design to ‘avoid recycling’
Or Design for Circularity. Most of the products today subscribe to a linear economy, and so been looked at wastage only at the far end of the cycle and solution to handling waste was ’recycling’. Moving into a circular economy, requires a paradigm shift not only in processes but also in our mindset . To deploy the ways mentioned above without recourse to recycling we have to start right at the beginning, the design & development stage.
The traditional concept of Design as a discipline for the visual or features of tangible products is changing . It also includes reviewing business models, material choices, the way they interact with people ,logistics, collection and infrastructure systems. It evaluates how different materials are combined and how easily they can be reused, repaired, refurbished, or disassembled.
Design decisions often lead to long-term investments that lock us into a certain model for years to come. 70% of a product’s life-cycle costs and environmental footprint is determined during its design phase.
These choices affect the entire system and therefore sourcing & production. The determine how we things and what happens after the product has been used. Does it become waste? Or can it be designed where one material after use can be used as feed for another ?
Or design for circularity in the product and the process of manufacture and its use.
What can you do and WIFM ( what is in it for me )?
There are multiple ways by which you can contribute in this area and benefit from it. Be it as an entrepreneur, as a professional working in an organization or as a contribution to the community or society .
Look for the concluding part of this article in the coming weeks :)
This article engages the issue of Waste Management which is surely one of the top global challenges in the 21st century. The practice of Recycle is not only a matter of hierarchy but also of application. An aluminum foil packaging for food cannot, after use, be repaired or reused. Recycling such aluminum foil is an ideal alternative to waste dump. It can be recycled forever which makes such Recycling integral to Circular Economy with zero waste. The practice of Repair must be seen in the context of modern Manufacturing. Automation in Manufacturing has crashed down unit cost of production. Repair continues to be largely manual. With rising Standards of Living, even unskilled manual labour in present times is costlier than a graduate engineer a decade ago or a technical specialist 2 decades ago. 2 decades ago it was feasible to economically change the worn-out soles of a pair of shoes by a cobbler & gain a fresh lease of life. In present times, the cost of a cobbler changing the soles is almost the same as buying a new pair of shoes. Manual Repair of shoes is so expensive that the profession of cobblers has seen a steep drop in practitioners. We need to see 21st century Waste Management through the lens of 21st century Economics & Society.