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Designing with Waste is a hub for experimental designers and makers of all stripes who are interested in sustainable materials. Go to the Community page to learn about using the Designing With Waste GitHub repository and hashtags to learn about and share information on new materials developed from waste materials. By sharing knowledge, such as the recipes we develop and the tips and tricks we come up with for others’ recipes, we can make healthier and more intentional advances towards reducing our negative environmental impact. Because let’s be frank, we throw out too many things are still reusable or recyclable. While those materials may be safe to use outside of landfills, once they’re buried in an anaerobic environment, they can start leaching toxic chemicals into the land and water.
The purpose of Designing With Waste is to foster collaboration so that together we can come up with solutions to overconsumption and disposability. Design can’t save the world by itself, but since design touches on so many aspects of the human experience, it can make an impact. Through the reduction of waste materials and the adoption of regenerative practices, we can help address overconsumption and disposability, which are learned habits that lead to problems such as overflowing landfills (which leach toxic chemicals in soil and waterways) and monocultural practices (such as deforestation and monoculture agriculture). These problems lead to crises such as a loss of biodiversity and manmade climate change, which are problematic since they contribute to the spread of microplastics, extinction, the destruction of ecosystems, and the spread of novel coronaviruses, to name just a few.
As designers and makers of all stripes, we must strive to work more responsibly, to lower our negative impact on the planet. Regenerative and planet-centric design coupled with circular economies is a way to go about doing that. By working together on these issues, we can create more thoughtful change. So please, feel free to lurk here, but also know that you’re always welcome to leave a comment, ask questions, and you’re especially welcome to contribute to the recipes in the Designing With Waste GitHub repository. Test the recipes, make suggestions on improvements, clone the recipes and make them your own, clone the GitHub template and contribute your own recipes. Let’s make change together.
The word community gets thrown around a lot more regularly these days. It’s quickly becoming a meaningless marketing buzzword. But the traditional meaning of the word is powerful. A community is a group of people who feel fellowship with one another because they have shared interests and goals. This is powerful because, as a social creatures, humans tend to be able to achieve great and impressive feats by working together. From architecture to medicine, we as a species would not have been able to make technological achievements without working together.
Designing with Waste strives to engage a community of makers working together to develop sustainable materials. With the collaborative tools offered, makers can easily engage each other in conversations about sustainable materials. See the Community page to learn more.
Everything can be considered waste once its original life is over. For too long, we’ve been tossing things out as soon as we don’t want them anymore, regardless of whether or not the object is still usable. Designing with Waste focuses on waste materials to help prevent useable materials from being thrown out because a lot of things in landfills off gas toxic chemicals into the ground and waterways.
My name is Mari Miller and I’m the person behind this site. I started it as part of my industrial design graduate thesis, and I hope to keep it useful and running for many years to come. This initiative started during the pandemic, when I couldn’t go out to a store and just buy the modeling materials I needed. So I pulped some junk mail and tried to make a usable clay out of it. It failed a lot. But eventually I was able to develop an alternative to extruded polystyrene foam. By taking what I learned from making the foam alternative, I was able to develop an alternative to synthetic clays. Developing these plastic-alternatives was great, but leaving it at that would have had no impact.
Having engaged in experimental design before, I knew that far too many upcycled and compostable materials never made it beyond the classroom. My hope is that the Designing with Waste website and its associated tools will help anyone who is interested in waste materials give their work a life beyond their own classroom or studio.