Conversations: Kent County Recycling and Education Center
Over the past few months our team at Filter Studio has been researching and visiting local recycling resources in West Michigan. Recently, we got the chance to visit and tour the local Kent County Recycling and Education Center. We were excited to hear that similar businesses had been visiting the Recycling Center, trying to learn more about the impact their businesses are having on the environment.
As we toured the Recycling Center, it became obvious that many people have not had proper training on how to recycle. Walking through the facility, there were boxes of Christmas lights, propane tanks, and loads of thin plastic bags - all of which are not meant to be sent through this building. Plastic bags getting stuck in machines could mean that the entire plant would need to shut down until it could be untangled. A stray propane tank could cause a sudden explosion, dangerous to the plant machinery and workers. We learned that as the Recycling Center collects electronics, batteries, and other miscellaneous technological items which they cannot process, they send them all to a local technology recycling company called Comprenew to be properly disposed of.
Recycling Center conveyor belt separating out glass from small miscellaneous objects
Boxes of collected propane tanks, Christmas lights, and scrap metal that have been separated at the Recycling Center
Ideas for Designing Around Recycling:
We learned some facts surrounding waste that surprised us, especially the way we think about ‘sustainable design’.
1. Rethink the way you design single-use biodegradable items. We were shocked to learn that plant based plastics (such as disposable forks, packaging, etc.) MUST be composted. If these items are not composted, they will not decompose in a landfill. In that case, the ‘plant based’ plastic has lost its purpose as a sustainable option for disposable silverware.
2. Design large items to tear down into recyclable pieces. The Recycling Center cannot recycle trash larger than 2’x2’. If a chair can be broken down into smaller pieces fitting the size requirements, then it can easily be recycled. This is important when it comes to construction of your plastic and metal chairs, making it simple for the consumer to take it apart at the end of its life. A good example of this is the Think chair designed by Steelcase. This chair was purposefully designed to be taken apart in pieces that are able to easily be recycled, which you can see in the image below.
Think Chair (photo from Steelcase)
Deconstructed Think Chair (photo from Steelcase)
3. Design your products with reusable resources. Some companies, such as Boxed Water, bale their own products and have the recycled content sent back to their manufacturing center to be processed and reused to make new products. We have seen this on a few tours, and find it fascinating to see a company being so conscious about the footprint they leave through production.
4. Find a permanent means of letting your consumer know how to tear down your product. We have seen a couple of instances where a product has directions or a mission statement molded into it during manufacturing. These directions let the consumer know the impact they are making and also how to tear apart and recycle the product after many years of use. One piece of furniture that has been a good example of this is the award-winning Limerick Chair, designed by Tom Newhouse in collaboration with Herman Miller. Molded into the chair is a detailed descriptions of how to tear down and recycle the chair, part of the rePurpose Program by Herman Miller.
Limerick Chair - Designed by Tom Newhouse with Herman Miller
Recycling Instructions Molded into Seat - (Image from Chairish.com)
5. Educate yourself on recycling. There are massive amounts of companies that focus on recycling and the niche categories within that. If you have the chance to visit one of these facilities, ask questions that interest you personally and questions that will help you professionally. This tour at the Kent County Recycling and Education Center was just the beginning of our journey to running a more sustainable studio, and we highly recommend taking the time to visit.
We want to thank the team at the Kent County Recycling and Education Center for guiding us through their facility and supplying us with such interesting and valuable information. If you have any other suggestions for facilities that our team could reach out to to learn more about recycling or sustainability, please leave a comment below.