We Don’t Have a Waste Problem. We Have a Design Problem.

Thinking differently about materials, consumption, and the systems we create.

Some things just stick with you for a long time. They click in you an idea or perspective that changes how you see the world. For me, there is a single quote that changed my entire perspective on how I saw and interpreted the systems and built environment that surrounded me every day.

“[A] tree makes copious blossoms and fruit without depleting its environment. Once they fall on the ground, their materials decompose and break down into nutrients that nourish microorganisms, insects, plants, animals, and soil. Although the tree actually makes more of its “product” than it needs for its own success in an ecosystem, this abundance has evolved (through millions of years of success and failure or, in business terms, R&D), to serve rich and varied purposes. In fact, the tree’s fecundity nourishes just about everything around it.”

—Cradle to Cradle, by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

This one paragraph changed how I thought about the systems that surrounded me. I’ve always done my best to recycle, limit my everyday waste, and do what I’d been told would lower my environmental impact. But I’d always thought about my actions as solving for a negative or addressing an inherent scarcity, never that the problem itself needed to come from a different perspective. The problem isn’t that we waste too much or that we don’t have enough, the problem is our relationship to material and its next use.

The tree’s abundance doesn’t create a problem with its waste because it has formed a deep interconnected relationship with the environment surrounding it. Our materials and products on the other hand, currently lack that connection and are disconnected from the environment and community. We harvest raw materials, manufacture finished products, consume materials, and send all that waste to a landfill to be out of sight and out of mind. Every step in the cycle thinks only of its own step, not how it relates to the overall system and environment it’s a part of.

It’s not waste that is the problem. It’s that our waste has nowhere to go.

Our linear production system makes sense. It’s easy to build and easy to maintain; it doesn’t rely on other systems to continue functioning. If one kink in the chain breaks, the system can usually keep functioning with minor adjustments. What it does best though, is changing the idea of useful items into worthless items. At each step in the cycle, the material moving through only holds value as long as it stays in that step. The moment a raw material is a finished product, it’s no longer useful to the mine that it was pulled from. Once a manufactured item is beyond repair, it is no longer any use to us. 

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Repurpose; is one way we are told that we can take action against all of our consumer waste, but each one of these R’s is only a bandaid on a larger problem. While the intention of each R is there, it puts all the pressure on individuals to continually perform restraint and to be constantly thinking about all of our consumer actions. We never see a tree put that much constraint or pressure on itself to not waste too many leaves or fret over putting some of the leaves back on the branches. The relationship the tree has with its environment takes away all of that pressure.

What William McDonough & Michael Braungart did with their simple tree example changed the entire conversation in my head. What if we designed for abundance instead of disposal? Circular and closed loop manufacturing systems are not a new idea, but if we took it a step further and every step in the cycle and every output had another intended purpose. Instead of a product losing its value once it’s moved from one step to the next, what if that value changed? What if your disposable water bottle was also a seed? When you tossed it on the ground it could fertilize the soil and provide a benefit to local pollinators. Suddenly that same water bottle that originally would have gone to a landfill becomes something that could be tossed almost anywhere with tangible benefits. 

Relationships are the key to thinking through systems solutions. Including the environment, community, workers, and consumers in every key decision point changes the questions we start to ask. When extracting raw materials, how are we thinking about our relationship to the land? When manufacturing a new consumer product, how does that affect the well-being of the workers on the line and their relationship to the product they are building? Will the product benefit everyone in the community or just a select few? These are all relationships between material and person, and these relationships affect the entire cycle of manufacturing.

Our role as individuals, regardless of profession, is to ask questions, think with an abundance shifted mindset, and help build better relationships. When we see things in a relationship mindset, we are able to think more creatively about solving problems and are able to move towards better solutions that serve all members of a community. Designers have a unique position because they are already asked to solve problems and are expected to think creatively, but everyone has the same opportunity. Engineers, gardeners, community leaders, everyone can rethink the systems around them. 

Real impactful change is made through positive action. People respond best to challenges when they aren’t placed in a negative, defeated, or scarcity mindset. There are so many possibilities to make change. Each little step in the cycle is an opportunity for a shift towards a better relationship and creative solution. So much of this shift can come from just asking the right questions. Instead of asking “How do we create less waste?”, ask,

"How do we design systems where nothing becomes waste in the first place?"