Recirculative Design

Innovative and alternative methods of manufacturing and production are becoming a necessity in a world of rapidly diminishing resources and wasteful consumption habits. As the world quickly runs out of room for all the trash amassed, companies will start to take a better look at alternative methods of waste disposal. More companies are beginning to take the first steps in adopting a circular, closed-loop system to design out waste by creating products that can be perpetually recycled in either a technical/industrial or biological cycle. Recirculative Design is our term for incorporating regenerative and nature-inspired design + environmental circularity + zero waste & toxicity + rapid technological and scientific innovation, e.g., bioengineering, synthetic biology, 3D printing. This framework represents an overhaul in how products are designed, built, sold, consumed and disposed of. While an extension of the circular economy – which is based on resource efficiency, product optimization, transparency and environmental sustainability – recirculative design seeks to gain independence from our current finite resources and create its own sources of energy and materials. Municipalities, urban developers, designers and manufacturers will increasingly have to think in terms of recirculative design as more people crowd into already crowded urban areas. The wasted goods and by-products of today need to be seen as the raw materials of tomorrow.