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Climate Café: Reimagining our approach to "waste"

Monday 26th June, 12.15-1.45pm

With Niklavs Rubenis

As a society, we’re throwing things away at a staggering rate, causing serious health and

environmental problems, including contributing to climate changes.

But what about the stuff we’ve already got? Disposability is a relatively new concept – is it something

we can turn around?

This Climate Café will discuss how we can develop new ways of thinking and working around so-called

“waste”.

Niklavs Rubenis will kick off the discussion with a short presentation, followed by small group

discussion of the following questions:

Whose responsibility is waste?

How do we give “broken things” value?

How do we begin to build a mass cradle-to-cradle approach?

About the speaker

Niklavs Rubenis is a designer, maker, curator and academic with a diverse research and studio

practice. He has been involved with projects spanning community, non-profit, commercial and

cultural institutions, and has had work exhibited and presented nationally and internationally.

Rubenis’ research revolves around consumption and production, material culture, technology and the

importance of retaining, promoting and applying craft skills to the almost forgotten practice of re-use

and repair as a tool for slowing down waste. He currently lectures at the ANU School of Art & Design.

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Whose responsibility is waste? Reflections from discussion tables

The person who produces the waste. If cannot be repaired, etc., it shouldn’t be produced. We need to enforce, because businesses won’t make change voluntarily without profit. In Austria, manufacturers etc. are responsible for packaging recycling, collection. Producers are automatically integrated into the system, and there are incentives. Specific and binding targets for resource consumption: glass, wood, paper, metal… We need mandatory targets. We should view reuse and recycling as separate. Priority is reuse. Recycling is second best as reuse, but better than sending to landfill. In Germany, there are discussions about packaging, packaging tax, the amount of material used and sustainability. This is to encourage better manufacturing systems.

In past childhoods, kids could go to tips, start a fire, build toys etc. Today, though, kids don’t have the skills to sew. For example, if something rips, it is trash. The perceived value of broken items is zero, due to lack of ability to fix. There is responsibility on ‘us’ as parents – kids see things as trash because we haven’t let them learn how to fix things. So it is a dilemma about how much parents should be allowing their children to do things like ‘cut open seals’ (or generally useful things). Parents often protect kids from using knives, but we also want to teach useful skills. ‘Protection’ against general skills for kids. If people feel like they can fix things, then the perceived value of something broken is no longer zero.

There are three bodies who are responsible for waste. One: producers who design and produce with intent of use or reuse (or not). Two: consumers, who have not enough of a concept of where objects come from. Three: other institutions like supermarkets who make it easy to buy wasteful things, e.g. plastic wrapping with no knowledge of real costs. Wasteful practices are enabled by organisational and social structures.

Institutions such as advertising, fashion, etc. create demand for wasteful products.

There are many with responsibility. Society, consumers, developers, designers… Demand produces the responsibility. But is this really from consumers? For example, in comparison to necessity, e.g. depression era. Anxiety and guilt can accompany waste production.

The government has responsibility for education as well as regulation. This is government at all levels.

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Considering past, current, and future waste will affect perspectives, i.e. pre-existing waste, current production, and future production. Who has responsibility for these types of waste?

Consumers do not know unknown unknowns. Lack of knowledge is a big issue, e.g. where do things come from, and how to dispose/recycle.

In USA, all components of items need to be labelled as to their materials and disposal. To remove uncertainty with disposal/recycling etc.

Ban taper-proof screws as these preclude repair!

How do we give broken things value? Reflections from discussion tables

We need to consider the cost of production, particularly internalising the externalities of production. If something is priced at its true cost, you are less likely to consume in the first place, and more likely to value it once you have it, and to repair rather than throw away. So, give people repair skills – repair is currently so expensive, so rarely used. Provide education, e.g. through schools, sewing buttons, build with wood, disassemble whitegoods, enable repair. Government can provide free repair services, and repair cafes are opening up. Supporting and providing these services would encourage repair. That knowledge can consequently give people the ability to buy products which are more repairable.

Material, shape, number: Material; what material is stuff made from? E.g. consider computers, can be value in the material. Shape; e.g. pallets can be useful once broken down. Number; if you have much which is broken, design solutions can be applied across many things.

Government can create market dynamics which affect consumers, retailers, producers.

In Germany, there is a big movement for communal repairs. Waste is run by a subset of government, not private industry. Repair cafes must be available, accessible, to high standards. Government works for community to help itself.

Change the way we value time. Waste products interact with convenience, we have belief we ‘don’t have time’, but we need to change how we value time.

Consider the material of a broken thing, if cannot be repaired, consider how it can be recycled to a new product. For example, outdoor furniture made from recycled pallets.

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Consider a closed loop supply chain, buy-back with recyclable materials. Using waste management schemes.

How do we begin to build a mass cradle-to-cradle approach? Reflections from discussion tables

Break the cycle of manufacturer, advertise, apathetic, consumers buying things due to advertising. Government should regulate to break the cycle, with approach which is outcome-based, tech-neutral, etc. to fit with free-market ideology. At the same time, public awareness campaigns are needed to produce public pressure to create the regulations. So manufacturers respond to regulatory certainty, and public pressure for better standards. But the cycle must be broken, and government is best placed for this.

Grandparents can show grandkids the skills of earlier generations. View repair as activity, which can bring generations together.

Three ideas. 1: more education, bottom-up approach (long-term), 2: regulate, incentivise manufacturers (long-term), 3: play into psychology, making ‘good’ products desirable (short-term). Across all three, markets work, but government has public interest at heart, while markets do not. Perpetual growth on a finite planet demonstrates limitations. For example, users should pay for proportion of use of product. Recommend website: www.thestoryofstuff.org has good info.

Production is internationalised, so it is difficult for governments to enforce recyclability, due to international sourcing of components. This makes regulation very difficult.

Supply-chains are difficult to manage due to internationalism, transparency is important, but some supply-chains you cannot trace materials. Without the transparency of the chain, cannot implement policies.

A community-based approach is desirable, to allow for localised facilities and access. Clearer labelling, waste efficiency rating, like US system, could be good.

Technology can enable consumers to recycle things in their own homes. Pocket spectrometers are coming in the years ahead. Devices can tell what types of plastic are present. The idea of recycling in your own home is very exciting. If you have the ability, you can collect ‘waste’ from others to make items purposeful again.

Circular-economy model is very useful concept for this discussion. There are questions about ANU’s institutional policies. ANU could be innovator in sustainability policy, e.g. implementing repair cafes on campus.

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Professor Mark Howden, Director CCI Procurement is an important lever for changing systems, as a way to improve sustainability outcomes, but is often considered ‘invisible’.

Niklavs Rubenis: Thanks to all for comments. This is quite a complex issue, with dimensions across: social, cultural, ethical, environmental, economic, political, emotional, historical, technological, education, time. Time is fundamental to this, because we are running out of time. Skills acquisition is also very important. Currently working on repair café, with the Green Shed in Mitchell for once a month have repair days. Talk to Nik for more info about this. Thanks to all.

Professor Mark Howden, Director CCI No substitute for doing things yourself, with your hands.

Insights from a long-term interest in technological history: If you go back in time, most of the things we use now are smaller, cheaper, use less materials, are more efficient, than what we used 100 years ago. For example, motor size, incandescent lightbulbs to LEDs. Technological trends are in the right direction, but more guidance would be good. Nevertheless we have done good stuff and should recognise these improvements.

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