A zero waste system.

 “Our current age is sleepwalking.” 

 Connet, 2007

“The earth is groaning”

Palmer, n.d.

​

Our planet is finite. Like all natural things on it, it functions in a circular manner. We are at odds with this sensibility. Ours is a linear society with a throwaway ethic. Our means of production and consumption have a singular trajectory from inception to discard. Extraction → manufacture → distribution → consumption → waste. Wealthier societies that are considered more developed  go through this transformation at a much higher rate, so much so that the throwaway culture has begun to mimic a circular sequence - “trend” is seen as a natural force that follows seasons. This is a farce created to encourage consumption. “Nature recycles everything; we do not.” (Connet, 2007) Zero Waste theory proposes reconstructing the systems of manufacturing from the ‘front end’, rather than recovering used products on the back end. In this sense, the design challenge is to remove waste from the inception of the process, rather than finding something to do with the waste post-manufacture and post-consumer. 

It is an inherently capitalist perspective that “waste is a highly desirable design feature” (Palmer, n.d.), because it is often the most profitable mode of design. Planned obsolescence is a prime example of an industrial initiative to create waste. Zero Waste is an industrial responsibility first, and an individual responsibility second. Christof Much criticises recycling and its “agendas” for encouraging waste creation, it is a practice that relies on it, and individuals have been indoctrinated into the mentality that recycling is their ‘problem’ for which they are responsible for solving. Recycling, in this pedagogy, is the highest and most invisible form of greenwashing. Waste does not start with the consumer. In fact the product is almost at the end of its waste trajectory by the time it has reached the individual. The onus is on the so-called designers that make products with a massive design flaw: they create waste. This means that almost all design is bad design. 

The individual consumer is never forced to think about the factory that made the [glass] bottle or the theory of distribution that resulted in bringing her [sic] bringing home the bottle when all she wanted was a soda or some mustard. She has no reason to keep in mind the enormously greater amounts of waste/garbage produced by the industrial machines that created that bottle in the first place. She pays no attention to the tiny fraction of the problem of garbage which her choice concerns, imagining instead that what she sees is what really counts. The recyclers then join her personal delusion with that of         scores of other consumers, all reinforcing the delusion that they are wrestling with saving the earth, instead of being funnelled into a tiny fraction of one percent of a large question. Recycling is sold as a religion… The politicians get on board, further promulgating this non-solution… The result is a self-serving, interactive system typical of most effective propaganda programs.

Palmer, n.d.

A fundamental notion to criticising these systems is to avoid the conflation of the individual choice and the design of waste creation. That is not to say the alternative is to stop recycling, this is pessimism for its own sake. The goal is to dismantle and redesign the methods and structures to make recycling as redundant as it theoretically is. 

In many ways, the fashion and textile industry appears entirely antithetical to Zero Waste thinking, certainly at this moment it is, but there are clear and manageable steps towards processes like WRIGHT Systems’ Zero Waste program. The key components of Zero Waste design are not foreign, which encourages the evolution towards such means. Modularisation is a key example. In the context of garment production, products can be designed in relation to existing patterns. ‘Hero’ patterns can make up a number of garments or garment elements, for example: ‘The excess fabric in this shirt pattern is used to create the strap for this bag’ or ‘the extra length of these sleeves is used to make pant pockets’ etc. The patterns evolve in a natural way, and new products are designed in the context of older products, creating an eco-system, of pattern making. This approach is astronomically closer to mimicking a natural, birth-death-rebirth function. Additionally, standardised design ensures waste exclusion and consistency in manufacturing, while also allowing for a versatile and inclusive use of the pattern or other design. Standardised design also encourages a careful and considered approach to reviewing and recreating for newer and better ideas. Finally, maximum information allows not only transparency with consumers, but a faster spread of good design. The Zero Waste approach is one to be shared; it is highly educational and transferable, and it is with these tendencies that make its spread viable. 

These components are inherently utopian; post-industrial, modular, cyclical and harmonious with the environment. And, like a utopian sensibility, Zero Waste demands radical systemic change. That change, however, must start with a reasonable exemplar. 

“Breaking that paradigm will be called revolutionary.” 

Palmer, n.d.