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Improving designs to reduce plastic waste

A multi-disciplinary 鶹ýƵվ team is seeking to ‘design out’ plastic waste by devising innovative new ways to reuse, recycle or compost plastic.

SDG case studyG12 reducing plastic waste

7 October 2020

Designing-out Plastic Wastehas brought together a diverse team of 鶹ýƵվ researchers interested in solving the plastic waste problem. 

The initial group, led by the Professor Mark Miodownik (鶹ýƵվ Institute of Making), includes a wide range of鶹ýƵվexperts,from biochemical engineers and chemists to psychologists, economists and sustainability researchers.

“We believe that waste is a failure of design,”saysProfessor Miodownik.“Each design failure affects and compromises the whole system, leading to leakage of plastic into the environment, and creating an economic burden on the UK.”

The projectisidentifyingchanges indesign that will make it easier to recycle plastics that can be recycled, as well as developing novel technologies to recycle plastics that currently cannot.

“For example, plastic laminate films have been identified by the retail and manufacturing sector as fundamental to their business, but are currently problematic to recycle,” explainsProfessor Miodownik.“We’re hoping todevelop a new bacteria-based recycling technology that will consume plastics, breaking them down into reusable material.”

The project isalso engaging with the publicas, Professor Miodownik argues,“weneed to break down the barriers that prevent more people from reducing their use of plastic to recycling. To do this we need to take the public with us–they buy plastic in the form of packaging and they are the ones who must put in the right bin.”

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