Press Release
For immediate release

CIWM Prepares for the Design Sprint as part of Circular Skills Programme

CIWM (Chartered Institution of Wastes Management) Design Council, WRAP, CEI and URGE Collective, have partnered with waste management company Biffa and retail business Decathlon for the next phases of the Design Skills for embedding circularity programme.

The Design Skills for Embedding Circularity pilot programme is now gearing up for a design sprint that will focus on ‘designing out waste’ - an intensive 6 week deep dive, exploring challenges and barriers to circularity through both business, design and waste and resources lenses. The Sprint is part of the wider programme, an innovative pilot project funded by CIWM that links professional designers with resources and waste operators to embed designing out waste principles into everyday design practice.

Site visits
The design cohort have spent the last four months visiting industrial waste facilities guided by circular economy expert Sophie Thomas. They have observed technical processes and met waste resource experts across the country; at Sherbourne Recycling’s Super MRF, SWEEEP’s waste electrical and electronic equipment recycling plant, DS Smith’s largest UK recycled papermill, Enfinium's energy from waste plant, Biffa’s Edmonton MRF, Enovert’s landfill sites in Gloucestershire, and SUEZ’s Renew Hub in Manchester. They have also visited Decathlon’s London HQ, and Allermuir's furniture remanufacturing hub in Manchester to explore how circular business models are being realised.

Expert sessions
The programme has included a series of online expert sessions around all aspects of circularity, curated by designer, and impact strategist Alexie Sommer. Knowledge has been shared about British Standard’s circularity framework, Moramma’s design approaches to circularity, Grey Parrot’s AI enabled sorting technology, Lucas Munoz’s urban mined interiors, Materiom and Shellworks on bio material innovation, Elvis & Kresse on responsible material sourcing and regenerative farming, Recoup on plastic recycling and Extended Producer Responsibility, Circul’r on the European regulation landscape, WRAP on their circular living standards and business appetite for circularity, and UCL’s latest research in consumer behaviour in plastic waste and repair culture. 

“The expert knowledge we’ve woven into this pilot programme is unparalleled. The designers have been exposed to the sheer complexity of opportunities and barriers to circularity, and are better informed about the design choices they can make to design out waste and design in circularity. The sprint is our first chance to put this knowledge to practise and test how the information and connections made can lead to design-led solutions and system changes" 
Alexie Sommer - Co-Director, Design Skills for Embedding Circularity.

Early insights
Each site visit and expert session has revealed myth busting facts concerning how we design and manufacture for recovery, reuse or recycling and the barriers to circularity. These insights range from: the amount of lost material at the MRF stage from size or material complexity; Coloured PET ruling out recycling, problematic waste arriving at MRFs including: vapes, textiles, nappies, cookware, batteries that shouldn’t be there (identifying confusion around bins and collections); and the extremely limited intervention points for repair or reuse between user and industrial waste sorting.

“Prior to the SWEEEP visit, I was already using 'design for disassembly' as an approach in my practice. Having observed that UK WEEE waste is currently shredded into small particles, I now realise design for disassembly needs to be combined with customer facing interventions for repair or remanufacturing so that key materials can be recovered throughout the system” 

Dan Cooke, Director of Policy, Communications and External Affairs at CIWM, says: “Policy is moving in the right direction, with Simpler Recycling, packaging Extended Producer Responsibility, Plastics Packaging Tax, a Deposit Return Scheme, and potentially the Emissions Trading Scheme for energy from waste plants already in motion. Collectively they will increasingly nudge businesses towards circular models, and of course we await the Government's Circular Economy Growth Plan for England. 
 
'However, a vital element for progress is cross-sector collaboration and expertise – designers who understand what happens to a product at end of life, and resources and waste professionals who can influence design thinking upstream.
 
These connections are important in helping to move the world beyond waste. In just a few weeks, this cohort is moving from waste facility floor to design studio, and knowledge is now being applied to live challenges from Biffa and Decathlon. That’s the kind of practical, cross-sector capability that can turn circular ambition into tangible action.”

Sprint partners
The designers are now ready to start tackling the big challenges they have observed through a design sprint with partners Biffa and Decathlon. This next phase sprint is being facilitated by designer, educator, Design Council expert Tara Hanrahan.

Site visit observations, information gathered and connections made are informing the enquiries the designers will tackle during the sprint. In parallel partners Biffa and Decathlon have set sprint challenges that the designers can respond to. These range from designing approaches that prevent vapes entering household waste and recycling streams, demonstrator concepts that enable easier disassembly and recovery of high-value components from small electronics especially lithium batteries, how to design out festival tent waste, and how to design a practical and scalable reusable packaging system for buy back / resale programmes.

Interest in the Design Skills for Embedding Circularity programme has come from across the UK, and Europe and from as far afield as Australia. There is a huge demand for this type of hands-on immersive professional development from designers. Insights from the programme will be shared during an exhibition and symposium in the autumn. Get in contact with the programme directors if you’d like to attend.

Key dates 
Design Sprint: June - July 
Symposium and exhibition: Autumn.

Programme directors:
Sophie Thomas — sophie.thomas@etsaw.com / +447951015252
Alexie Sommer — alexie@urgecollective.com / +447813216842

ENDS

Press contact:
Kacie Foskett, Brand Marketing & Communications Manager
T: +44 (0) 1604 620426
E: kacie.foskett@ciwm.co.uk