This project examines the different ways in which a circular economy could be created for waste woven polypropylene sacks (WPPS), which are generated by the brewing industry. Current solutions and technologies will be evaluated, and new infrastructure will be theorised. Waste is as much a problem of human behaviour and culture as it is technology and infrastructure. An embedded mixed methods design will be used; the findings of materials science research will be embedded into overarching design thinking processes. The integration of the two methods will allow us to understand what infrastructure and products people are most likely to engage with, and whether they are materially feasible.

While I was carrying out my internship at Toast Brewing, over the summer after second year, I realised that woven polypropylene (PP) sacks were generated as waste through the brewing process. I found out that these bags were 100% recyclable and set off trying to find a way Toast could use their own waste as a resource. I think taking the Materials & Making module in second year really helped me go about my research in a constructive and informed way and it gave me the confidence to try to realise the idea.

Initially, there was a lot of Google-ing, but the most value and insight I gained was from talking to people who ran small-scale recycling businesses. Talking to people in the brewing industry was also helpful, as it told me that there was not really space for anything made from recycled PP. This meant I had to start looking outside. This lead to lots of reading and thinking.

Based on the thinking and reading, I had a list of potential applications for the PP sacks. I was very luckily able to gain access to a materials lab, in which I was able to test the sack and examine some of its properties. Other than that, I continued talking to people within and across the plastics recycling industry.

I was also interested in the cultural/anthropological aspect to this problem of waste, but did not manage to explore it as much as I would have hoped.

The design thinking processes lent themselves very clearly to designing new circular infrastructures and applications. Materials insight helped understand what would be feasible and what would not.

I intended to create a plan for recycling infrastructure and a circular application for this material. However, while the infrastructure is relatively straightforward, there is no perfect ‘silver bullet’ or product that can be made with this material. Balancing different approaches, such as longevity or impact or processing, is difficult and sometimes inherently contradictory. Perhaps, instead, a range of circular applications is needed, or the suggested infrastructure can act as a small piece of a larger, circular puzzle.

It is difficult to come up with a fully circular solution that ticks all the boxes. Given the limits imposed on use by the system we current operate under, this can feel like putting a plaster on a broken bone.

However, I met a lot of people who are making a positive impact. One of my key takeaways is probably all the amazing conversations I got to have! The other one was that it is incredibly hard to do research without the right resources.

I’m proud that in what I’ve done and the potential that it has.