Rubbish Tools & Questions: how do we think about waste?

What have you wasted?

This was the question that Adapt, a climate club and design studio founded by Josie Tucker and Richard Ashton, asked the public with their experimental project The Waste Database in 2021.

“My precious youth on this boring job”, said one respondent. “Electricity online window shopping, even though I never buy anything…” wrote another. “Chemicals down the drain from all of my expensive hair products”, replied a third.

The responses, submitted through an easyto-use and visually punchy online interface, ranged from funny to poignant. They reveal the kinds of anxieties we associate with waste – I should be, I could be, I want to be less wasteful – and yet, despite these good intentions, we continue to produce millions upon millions of tonnes of waste every year, enticed by persistent whispers of consume, consume, consume.

What have I wasted?

When I ask myself this question, the dread creeps in. Too many glass pickle jars to count as I have snacked my way through cycles of writing and procrastination; thousands of half-drunk cups of tea, mindlessly abandoned to grow cold in moments of distraction; and plenty of minutes, hours, and months fretting about all that I am wasting and my lack of agency and action on this huge issue.

Over the past few years, I have thought a lot about waste. I have researched and written on the topic and its relation to the climate crisis for several different projects – most recently working as the assistant curator of the Design Museum’s exhibition Waste Age: what can design do? (October 2021- February 2022) with curator Gemma Curtain and chief curator Justin McGuirk. Waste is a hugely complex topic, full of contradictions, conditions, and nuances that shift based on factors such as context, economics, systemic infrastructure, geography, legislation, transportation, social behaviours, and material knowledge. This makes it a frustratingly difficult area to communicate about and, therefore, take action on. As an out-of-sight-out-of-mind problem, it is easy to avoid because, while waste is everywhere, we hardly ever see it. Waste is obscured by enormous systems of production and disposal that occur behind closed doors.

The Waste Database is a useful reflective tool to prompt us to think about waste. Through a simple question and bold use of colour and fonts, the designers reframe waste as something relatable rather than a boring, far-away issue. According to Adapt’s Instagram post, the survey aimed “to help people notice different forms of waste from themselves and others.” The individual focus of their waste tool was likely the result of the project being produced in partnership with household cleaning product brand Ecover, and while individuals have a part to play in helping to mitigate the harmful impacts of waste by applying pressure through their buying decisions, there are other, more powerful players in the waste and climate crisis we face.

Designers can create new systems and materials for manufacture. Large-scale corporations and manufacturers can ensure their materials, supply chains and products are less wasteful. Governments must legislate more actively and aggressively against waste. But, what would these tools look like? And how can the question then transition from what have you wasted? to how can we deal with the waste problem? And, how can we waste less?

In 1979 Dutch politician Ad Lansink was asking similar questions. He proposed a ranking system for waste management called the Ladder of Lansink. The schematic illustration clearly and simply orders options for waste management and resource conservation from top to bottom: “reduce” being the most preferable option, followed by “reuse”, “recycling”, “energy recovery”, “incineration”, and, as a last, least preferable resort “landfill”. The ladder clarified what should be considered each and every time we confront the potential for creating waste and disposing of it in order of what will be the least damaging to the planet and what will save the most resources. It was incorporated into Dutch legislation in 1993.

Over the years, Lansink’s ladder has evolved into the EU and UK’s Hierarchy of Waste Management which similarly ranks waste management strategies but rephrases some of the words and includes ‘prevention’ as the top priority. This inclusion speaks to the design and manufacturing stage of a product’s life and the waste that is created when we produce goods – through the extraction of raw materials from the earth, production offcuts, energy consumption, toxic chemical use and so much more.

Graphically presented as an upsidedown pyramid, the Hierarchy of Waste Management is effective in showing the optimum weighting of how waste should be dealt with. Its design is utilitarian reflecting its creation predominantly for legislative purposes, rather than consumers.

As a tool, the charm of the waste hierarchy lies in its simplicity and applicability for everyone despite its origin and intended use is in the political sphere – an individual can apply the hierarchy to their microactions while at the same time, designers, makers, or manufacturers can use it to inform design, where to source materials from, and how to manage by-products or other waste. A governing body can use it to decide on which kinds of legislation and project funding to prioritise. The hierarchy is an approachable entry point into a complex issue. It acknowledges that we cannot immediately solve the problem of waste, entangled as it is with our everyday lives, but we can take steps to mitigate the production of waste and, as a consequence, reduce its environmental damage while diverting precious re-useable resources from landfill.

The Waste Hierarchy is not perfect – it is law binding but it is difficult to enforce its use, it does not acknowledge the need for resources such as finances, time, and systematic infrastructure necessary to support the categories of the pyramid and it can be limited is addressing the nuances of different materials needing unique waste treatments e.g. metal vs food waste. However, it is one of the most useful tools I’ve come across for thinking about - and taking action on - waste.

The wonderful thing about the hierarchy’s visual and structural simplicity is that each word encourages the user of the hierarchy to think about how and where they apply it. Behind each tier (with the exception of disposal) are thousands of implementable approaches and design strategies that can be taken to reduce waste - e.g. design for disassembly, borrowing, and renting goods, identifying valuable waste streams and resources etc. The broad yet clear words encourage us to ask questions that can lead directly to actions and decisions. In uncertain times and with a mounting climate collapse, these urgent questions are much needed. The upside-down pyramid gently replaces the incessant whisper of consume, consume, consume, with an alternative: consider, question, act.

Lara Chapman writer, design researcher & curator

Lara Chapman is a London-based writer, design researcher & curator. Her work explores the intersection of the climate crisis & design & the stories we can tell through everyday objects. Lara has written for publications such as Disegno, Architectural Review, and DAMN. She has exhibited projects at the V&A and Dutch Design Week. She holds an MA in Design Curating and Writing from Design Academy Eindhoven and a BA in Product and Furniture Design. She is currently an assistant curator at the Design Museum in London.