Just because you can reuse something, doesn’t mean you should. As industry moves towards a circular world in which materials will ideally be used over and over, ensuring that recycled materials don’t adversely affect human health becomes ever more important. This session will illustrate key material health considerations when thinking about moving to a circular product design, reframing the material health challenge as an opportunity for successful circular design.

Reducing the billions of dollars of food waste lost every year is a priority for every step in the food and ag supply chain. Not only will it help ensure adequate food for a growing population, but there is money to be made. Internet of things (IoT) devices such as sensors on products, distribution points, trucks and trains have helped gather data that can be used to reduce and even eliminate waste. IoT analytics are advancing quickly, with new technologies designed to bring improvements to food processing, packaging, distribution and retail. This session will review some of the new IoT technologies and how companies are using them.

Early-generation wind, solar, and battery storage systems are already reaching the end of their useful lives, leaving us with the possibility of millions of metric tons of waste heading to landfills over the next 20 years. However, there are ways we can collect, process and reintroduce these materials back into supply-chains at current or even higher values. Further, it’s imperative that we design next-generation renewable systems for up-gradeability, perpetual useful life and built-in circularity. Join us to discuss how we can address these renewable energy production material end-of-life challenges at our roundtable.

About Roundtable Lunches: Join interactive lunch discussions, moderated by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants. All roundtable lunches do not have advanced sign-up — participation is first-come, first-served.

What's the role of advanced recycling technologies in keeping materials circulating through our economy and creating a circular economy for plastics?

There’s been a growing buzz around chemical recycling and the promise of new technologies that can fix the broken recycling system. However, the technologies, terminology and applications can be confusing and are not widely understood. This session will explore the chemical recycling landscape: the transformational technologies that turn waste plastics back into new materials, decrease reliance on fossil fuels and curb the flow of plastics into marine environments.

Part one of this two-part breakout will unpack the basics of chemical recycling, explore the landscape of technologies and discuss applications and opportunities to unleash this emerging opportunity.

What's the role of advanced recycling technologies in keeping materials circulating through our economy and creating a circular economy for plastics? 

There’s been a growing buzz around chemical recycling and the promise of new technologies that can fix the broken recycling system. However, the technologies, terminology and applications can be confusing and are not widely understood. This session will explore the chemical recycling landscape: the transformational technologies that turn waste plastics back into new materials, decrease reliance on fossil fuels and curb the flow of plastics into marine environments. 

Part two of this two-part breakout will explore the chemical recycling market opportunity, look at where chemical recycling is going and how to finance and scale this emerging market to meet the growing demand for recycled content. 

The backlash against planned obsolescence has begun, and products makers of all types — from consumer electronics to industrial equipment — are waking up to a new world of design and service. Advocates of the “Right to Repair” movement are demanding that manufacturers prioritize the development of better maintenance paths for their products, through modular designs and broader availability of components that make repair simpler for the DIY set — and that extend product lives in the process. Policymakers are paying attention: as of early 2019, 20 states including California and Minnesota are actively considering legislation. What does this mean for makers of stuff? How does this philosophy play into circular models of production? This roll-up-your sleeves session will feature a hands on disassembly demonstration, as well as a discussion between one of the outspoken voices in the “Right to Repair” movement as well as the perspective of an electronics OEM on the implications for product design, the availability of repair components, intellectual property and more.

Whether it's at the product, business or systems level, new circular economy metrics are a useful tool to quantify and understand impact. But measuring circularity is just the start. This session will help you move beyond measuring to action. Learn how to act and adapt once you've quantified circularity, and adapt your product or business design to move closer to closing the loop. 

A quarter of our waste gets recycled and yet the system is broken in so many ways. First, it's a business which (like many) doesn’t price in externalities and as a result, the economics often don’t align with municipal objectives. How many times have we heard of a city trashing items that were too expensive to recycle? Even though reducing waste should count squarely as a public policy goal, there is little federal guidance, and the need for more recycling often outweighs profits. China’s decision to stop recycling much of our waste sent the industry into a crisis that its has still not emerged from. Consumers are still confused about how to recycle, recycling is rarely considered during product design, and mostly, we haven’t cracked the profit model. Innovations in financing, policy and municipal contracts offer hope for fixing the system. 

From lighting fixtures to furniture to clothing and accessories, more companies are exploring models for providing products-as-a-service (PaaS) through such arrangements as rental or leasing, pay-per-use and subscriptions that redefine the concept of ownership. What does it take to design and manufacture products that can be “sold” in this manner? What’s the best pricing and financial models? How will this change expectations and create new opportunities for service and maintenance? Early adopters provide insights.