Friday 30 November marked the last day of EU Horizon 2020 funding for Trash-2-Cash and whilst its hard saying farewell to the project family we have worked very hard to create, today is a great day to reflect on all that we’ve achieved.
Just a month ago, at Dutch Design Week, we celebrated the project outcomes in a Final Results Seminar at VanBerlo HQ, all of us seated on a magnificent wooden staircase-come-auditorium along with some special guests. This is a great tableau for the project at M42: 3 technological breakthroughs; 6 master case product prototypes; 1 way of working together.
Professor Rebecca Earley (UAL) began by contextualizing the work we’ve done within current debates around climate change and plastic pollution followed by a presentation of the three technologies for cellulose regeneration, polyester de-re-polymerisation and polymer chain extension upgrading. Then was the turn of the methodology team to talk about the approach and tools for Life Cycle Thinking, presented by Dr Kate Goldsworthy (UAL), and Innovation by Julie Hornix (VanBerlo).
Dr Rosie Hornbuckle (UAL) then spoke about the approach taken by The Methodology Team to enable the interdisciplinary work between a great many partners, finishing with 32 Core Recommendations for Design Driven Material Innovation (DDMI) which can be found in the White Paper. The Six Master Cases were presented by the interdisciplinary teams involved in their creation, with a panel-style Q&A which probed the key challenges and issues addressed by each master case. The seminar is brilliantly captured in the film montage featured on the homepage.
We also recently completed the final T2C podcast for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Disruptive Innovation Festival (DIF) 2018, which revisits key moments in some of the podcasts we’ve recorded over 3.5 years, as well as including a new reflective conversation about the impact of the Final Showcase and the reception it received among visitors. Listen to the podcast here.
To complete the wealth of project resources you can also now find a final set of slides to represent the work we’ve completed and a final results brochure.
This is the end of T2C as an EU H2020 project but it’s just the beginning - the basecamp if you like: for demonstrating how these technologies can really challenge conventional modes of production; for exploring how design-science collaborations can drive circular innovation; for continuing cross-industry partnerships; for changing the way we all think about our own work and that of others. T2C represents a movement towards different ways of working, making, connecting and consuming which means there actually isn’t an end at all but a very bright, circular future.
Trash-2-Cash, over and out.
All images © Jeroen van der Wielen