Exhibition
Design Museum, London
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Until 20 February 2022
ONE of the most striking displays in the timely and eye-opening exhibition Waste Age is an array of 41 cubic and rectangular blocks made of various materials, including steel, rubber, glass, chromium, graphite, horsehair, plastics, oil and brake fluid. The last two hold clues as to the origin of the materials: they all used to be a Volkswagen Beetle that has been broken down into its constituent substances. It is the product of an art project called Materialism that deconstructs everyday objects from pencils to smartphones in order to lay bare how much we rely on materials extracted from the planet.
The despoliation of Earth is a recurring theme in , which opened at the Design Museum in London on the eve of the crucial COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, UK. The goal is to hammer home the environmental costs of our linear economic model and showcase the possibilities of a circular one, where products and materials are endlessly reused and recycled, rather than dumped or discarded.
The exhibition especially focuses on the underappreciated role designers play in delivering the transition to a less wasteful, or preferably zero waste, economy. 鈥淓ighty per cent of the environmental impact of the things around us is decided at the design stage, in what materials designers choose,鈥� says co-curator Gemma Curtin. 鈥淲e should think of waste as a resource. Some designers are really grasping that and running with it.鈥�
The opening part of the exhibition is an exercise in clobbering us into submission with big numbers. We have, it says, reached 鈥減eak waste鈥�. The world produces 2 billion tonnes of waste every year, more than seven times the combined body weight of everyone alive. Around half of this is food and other biological materials, but the rest is glass, metal, clothing, plastic, paper, construction materials and electronic waste. An average European discards 11 kilograms of textiles a year 鈥� 87 per cent ends up in landfill or incinerators.
鈥淎n average European discards 11 kilograms of textiles a year 鈥� 87 per cent ends up in landfill or incinerators鈥�
Judging from the exhibits, the circular economy will be more than capable of delivering material comfort and elegance. Among other things, there is an array of trainers and designer dresses created from plastic rubbish, beautiful new materials made from agricultural and aquacultural waste, furniture created from corn husks, insulation made from fungi, and laptops and smartphones that can be totally dismantled into their component parts to be repaired, upgraded or recycled. Almost everything we casually toss aside can be recycled into products that are, in the words of 19th-century designer William Morris, either useful or beautiful. Or both.
Fixing stuff looms large, with a section on the growing right-to-repair movement, whose manifesto declares 鈥渋f you can鈥檛 fix it, you don鈥檛 own it鈥�. Its goal is to make as many products as possible repairable rather than disposable, to save money, resources and the planet.
Earlier this year, France became the first European nation to bring in a repairability index. By law, five categories of electronic product 鈥� smartphones, laptops, washing machines, televisions and lawnmowers 鈥� must carry information, a bit like an energy-rating label, on how repairable they are. More product categories will be added in the next few years.
If the intended effect of the exhibition is to open our eyes to the wastefulness of the throwaway economy and the possibilities of the circular one, it works. I dare say most people will enter with a linear economy mindset and leave with a circular one.
Curtin says that as a result of curating this important exhibition, she sometimes envisages her own personal landfill 鈥� and it isn鈥檛 a pretty thought. 鈥淭he concept of throwing something away is just wrong,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here is no away.鈥�
