World Without Waste?

On average, every person in Germany produces about 220 kilograms of packaging waste each year. This puts us in first place in Europe. By 2050 there could be three times as much plastic in the sea as there are fish. If we bought a T-shirt two weeks ago, perhaps we will not like it any more tomorrow. If furniture is out of fashion, we just take it to the bulk waste center. But do we think about the consequences that this has for the environment and for future generations?

We all know the situation - almost every product in our shopping cart is wrapped in plastic, the streets are lined with waste plastic, the fashion and design cycle is getting shorter and shorter, and we adjust our consumer patterns to fit. At the same time, there is a growing environmental awareness in society and politics. And while the EU parliament passes laws on the protection of the environment, for example to ban plastic disposables from 2021, each one of us can also play a personal role. A first step could be to think about the products we buy, or about what will become of the products that we have already bought.

The TV children's show host Peter Lustig knew all about it …

Bags made from used truck tarpaulins or fireproof anoraks, cellphone covers made from old fire hoses, lamps made of disused bike wheel rims. Instead of throwing away our disused products, perhaps we could give our ‘waste’ the second chance that it deserves. In upcycling, an heirloom passed down through the generations is given a new lease of life and a new function. Its material value is preserved. In recycling, on the other hand, the material value is usually reduced. So experts also speak of downcycling.

In upcycling, environmental awareness and appreciation are enjoyably merged. The late TV host Peter Lustig showed us how well upcycling can be integrated into everyday life – by using milk containers, yoghurt beakers and egg boxes. The old containers can quickly and easily be transformed into plant pots or pen holders. In the DIY generation, furniture made from old freight pallets is right at the top of the list. By adding cushions and mattresses, they add a special charm to many bedrooms and living rooms. But where we merely enjoy the beautiful appearance, in third world countries upcycling projects are often a vital factor in improving the living environment. Simply, but with dramatic effects. For example, in the concept Liter of Light, plastic bottles are filled with water and bleach and then used as solar lamps for slum inhabitants to reflect the light of the sun or moon into their huts.

Upcycling has become a trend that departs from the throw-away consumer society and eliminates the need for packaging and transport - which are necessary for new products. However, upcycling does not completely get rid of the problem of environmental pollution.

Escaping from throw-away mode

In the long term, we merely delay the time when we throw things away. Eventually, the properties of the material are lost and the materials can no longer be recycled - a development that experts have labeled from the cradle to the grave. But it would be ideal if the materials could be completely fed back into the material cycle and used to create new products.

Cradle to Cradle (C2C) experts know that the world can also operate without any waste. Professor Dr. Michael Braungart, a chemist who is one of the inventors of the C2C approach in EPEA GmbH – Part of Drees & Sommer, is working to promote a new way of thinking. ‘When we go shopping we can choose between thousands of products, but when we return them we can only choose between three waste bins. How can that be? To avoid harmful waste, we therefore focus on pure and defined materials which can be returned to the cycle as biological or technical nutrients,’ he explains. To apply this principle, the products and processes must be planned from the outset and the whole service life must be taken into account - from the cradle to the cradle. This means that there is no longer any waste, merely raw materials which can then completely flow back into the biological or technical material cycle. The best model here is nature itself, which operates without any waste at all. In the C2C concept, only high quality materials are recycled which can be easily and simply broken down into their pure component parts after use so that they can then be integrated into new products. Apart from the recycling capacity and the high quality, the sustainability of the components also plays an important role.

How buildings can become raw material repositories / buildings like trees and cities like forests

The potential for C2C is particularly great in the construction industry because the building sector uses about a third of the world's total resources, and according to a UN estimate, it actually represents about half of the raw materials used in Europe. Applied to the construction industry, this means that all building materials and construction products must be designed in such a way that the quality of their components is retained. Buildings therefore become repositories of raw materials, which they release for continued use at the end of their useful life. This would then mean, for example, that buildings would be completely free of adhesives, plasterboard, plastics and extra insulating materials. Even the interior fittings in the buildings can be based on the C2C standard. For example, carpets must not be permanently glued to the floor.

In its client consulting process, Drees & Sommer follows the blue way approach which integrates the C2C concept to combine ecology and economics. This means that buildings and workplace concepts are developed on this principle. Example projects supported by Drees & Sommer include the new administration building of the RAG Foundation (task: socially acceptable discontinuation of subsidized coal mining) and the RAG corporation on the World Heritage site of the Zollverein Coal Mine in the German city of Essen, the first C2C-certified partition wall system in Germany produced by Strähle and the construction of the new central firefighters' building in the small Swabian municipality of Straubenhardt. Even the materials used by Drees & Sommer, such as brochures, flyers, printing paper and many advertising materials, can be recycled.

But it is also clear that there is even more mileage in the C2C concept. We must make fundamental changes in our thinking to move towards a world without waste which is a suitable legacy for future generations. You can find out more about how the youth of today are working for a better future in the interview with Felix Finkbeiner from the Plant-for-the-Planet foundation.