Design for recycling

In October, Design&assembly hosted its second event which brought the Bristol design scene together with expert speakers from the recycling industry, Phillipa Roberts (CEO at Binit Group Ltd) and Gwen Frost (Director at Resources Futures), to discuss: What does it actually mean to design well for our recycling systems? It was a fantastic night with some great discussion and we’ve captured some of the insights we learnt from the event here.

“Waste” says we’ve failed

What people and businesses put in the bin is a fascinating indicator of inefficiencies. Beyond the environmental impact, avoiding waste offers clear business advantages including maximising resources and cutting costs. Yet in our linear economy, we often normalise the failure that waste represents. Phillipa raised an excellent point confronting restaurants’ waste: “what’s wrong with your menu if food is being thrown away?” She highlighted the disconnect between people’s perception of value and waste. How can we help people reconnect the two? Circular economy thinking offers a path by recognising waste as a valuable input, not an end.

Recycling’s role in the waste hierarchy

Recycling is just one method of gaining additional value from our products and within the waste hierarchy it’s on the lower side of efficiency, so higher-priority methods like reuse and repair should be prioritised wherever possible. However, recycling still has a crucial role.

*Waste hierarchy - interpretation of ISO59000 by Circular Futures*

Complementing other methods: Recycling isn’t an “either-or” choice. For example, a repairable product, designed with accessible spare parts, will eventually have worn-out parts. Why not make those recyclable too?
Sometimes it’s the best option: For some products, like single-use components in medical devices, recycling may offer the lowest environmental impact. A life cycle assessment (LCA) could find that recycling these items results in lower CO2e than sterilisation and reuse.
Supporting ESG goals: Recycling is often central to company strategies for ESG commitments and PR. As designers, we can leverage these conversations to engage stakeholders in sustainability and encourage more impactful approaches in the future.

Meeting regulatory demands: There is legislation nipping at the heels of companies and producers, making recycling increasingly essential.

A surprising amount of stuff can be recycled—it just needs the right infrastructure that’s efficient enough to enable onward markets to be profitable. With England’s recycling rate at 43% and Wales ranking second globally at 57%, how can we design products that align better with these recycling systems?

Limitations of recycling systems and when they work best

Councils and private companies collect waste and transport it to material recovery facilities (MRFs), where it is processed using both automated and manual systems to remove contaminants and separate materials into single streams. While up to 92% of what reaches MRFs is recycled, ensuring materials actually get there is challenging. And to make things even trickier for designers, recycling systems vary widely across the country, each accepting different materials with no plans for standardisation anytime soon.

Material separation - it’s not pretty

Recycling mixed materials often requires crude industrial processes. For example, a pram made from metals and plastics will likely be shredded, then sorted through magnets, floatation, and infrared processes. While clean metals and plastics can be successfully separated, contaminated, or bonded materials (like metal fused with plastic) get diverted to waste and are likely incinerated or sent to landfill.

Designing products for disassembly can help with maintenance and repair, but it’s less effective for recycling if users lack the tools, time, or knowledge to disassemble items properly. Without accessible community resources or support, these designs may still end up as waste.

Material identification - cool but with blind spots

Plastics

Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is often used to sort plastics by type (it’s very satisfying, worth looking up), but it has limitations. Products with labels covering more than 60% of the surface (e.g. a Lucozade bottle) can’t be accurately identified and are often rejected. Clear plastics hold the highest recycled value as they can be repurposed for any clarity or colour. However, black plastics can’t be detected by NIR and are rejected as waste. An interesting case study is Lush, who have incentivized customers to return their distinctive black plastic packaging directly for in-house recycling.

Coated boards

Currently there isn’t an industrial solution to differentiating between films that are biodegradable and those which are compostable. Compostable plastics, e.g. PLA, contaminate the recycling stream, so to avoid this, all coated boards are generally rejected.

This raises an interesting systems question: Is it better to design with innovative materials that lack established recycling infrastructure, or to work with materials that already fit seamlessly within existing systems? Ideally an LCA should indicate where the product’s impact is concentrated to help answer this question, but what if as designers we took a holistic approach and questioned whether, like Lush, we can affect the gaps in the system too.

The coffee cup elephant in the room

During her talk, Gwen called design&assembly out on our "recyclable" paper cups we’d bought for the event. We assumed they’d be recycled, as advertised, just like many of us believe about recyclable coffee cups and other eco-friendly disposables. But, as Gwen explained, these cups aren’t recyclable with regular cardboard due to a plastic lining, which requires specialised processing. Only two facilities in the UK handle this, and although the technology exists, collection, sorting, and distribution are challenging. For MRFs, picking out these cups is inefficient and slow, often taking months to gather enough for recycling.

This issue highlights a larger problem: while these cups are technically recyclable, the infrastructure needed for actual recycling is lacking, making their recyclability more theoretical than real. So, should they be marketed as recyclable? This question extends to various eco-design solutions—such as compostable plastics and return schemes—where infrastructure often falls short of the product’s environmental claims. Are we misleading consumers by promoting these features, or pushing infrastructure to catch up?

Who says legislation isn’t exciting?

Legislation is a powerful incentive for producers to improve recycling accountability and can be a useful tool to encourage sustainable practices with clients by highlighting upcoming changes. The following two are good ones to be aware of:

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for Packaging: A big one! Beginning in the UK in 2025, EPR will require producers to cover the full costs of managing their products throughout their lifecycle. Fees will vary based on recyclability—the harder a product is to recycle, the higher the fee. EPR is also being considered for textiles and WEEE products, though these are likely further off.
EcoDesign for Sustainable Product Regulation (ESPR): This EU framework, launched this year, replaces the Ecodesign Directive and sets the stage for new sustainability standards across various product categories. In particular, ESPR will introduce Digital Product Passports (DPPs), which will provide a lifecycle overview of the product, including details of end of life, making recycling easier for both people and facilities - Exciting!

Final thoughts

Recycling has its place within the waste hierarchy but aim for higher impact methods where possible.
A surprising number of materials can be recycled but only if they reach the right facility.
Aim to design with mono materials wherever possible as it’s way easier to recycle simple, single material stream products.
Work with people’s natural inclination to do the “right thing” by developing systems/services that support them.
Recycling is always going to be lower impact than using raw materials.

Written by Abby Hatch
Edited by Sam Mytton