Designing With Waste

Long description

When introduced to circular design practices at school, designers can bring more sustainable practices to their professional work. I have developed prototyping materials that can replace modeling foam (Cai Board) and plastic-based clays (Cai Clay) using waste paper and plaster, called the Cai Modeling Materials. By making their own modeling materials, students can learn how to work circularly in a tangible way while being encouraged to experiment with waste materials. The materials require binders, with the recipes using waste and virgin binders. The standard recipe for Cai Board uses kuzu, a starch made from kudzu, which is an invasive species in the US South.

I’ve written a book called “Pasta Water for Designers” that, under a Creative Commons license, details how to make the materials. I’ve also built DesigningWithWaste.com, a hub for collaboration centered around waste materials built partially on GitHub. The lack of infrastructure around knowledge sharing leads many students and professionals to reinvent the wheel when they embark on experimental design projects. DesigningWithWaste.com provides tools to help creatives build upon others’ work in circular design, so that we can make more sustainable advances more quickly. Its open source nature allows businesses that otherwise would not be able to afford R&D costs to manufacture products made from waste materials. I see two futures for this project: harvesting invasive species like kudzu for virgin materials rather than sourcing virgin materials through deforestation and monoculture agriculture. The second is building a designer-friendly version of GitHub to make collaboration even easier.

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