Adding 'Reforming' to Reducing, Reusing and Recycling

UNSW SMaRT Centre innovations feature in a news story about built environment practices that pursue “reduce, reuse, recycle” strategies in their work and what changes need to happen to make this agenda mainstream.

SMaRT Centre Director Prof Veena explained to Landscapes Australia that adding 'reform'' to the three Rs of reduce, reuse and recycle is another crucial step in the sustainability challenge, where waste in reformed into value-added products and feedstock for remanufacturing.

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Excerpt:

"We look at materials holistically, focusing on science to develop circular economy-focused and sustainable solutions for practical deployment. What we do is research and develop technologies that reform hard-to-recycle wastes into feedstock for remanufacturing and new products. So, we focus on the fourth “R” of “reduce, recycle and reuse,” which is “reform.” We reform waste into valuable materials. Our best-known technologies are the Green Steel Polymer Injection Technology, which uses waste rubber tyres as an alternative to coke and coal in electric arc furnace steel making, and our range of “Microfactorie” technologies.

"We need to equip local communities to be part of the material value chain. We can do this through distributed, decentralised “micro-factories” that harvest everyday waste and/or end-of-life products to create remanufacturing solutions. We can save more than 90 percent of [current energy use] by bringing waste materials into remanufacturing streams and creating local jobs and supply chains. Currently, this is seen as too hard, but we can’t just assume our waste is someone else’s problem to deal with and hope they know what they’re doing.

"We need to be clear on the quality and performance of what we’re manufacturing or remanufacturing. If we feed end-of-life materials and waste back into electronic devices, food packaging, plastics and ceramics, then we don’t lose these valuable materials as waste in landfill. If it’s been made once, it should be remanufactured to keep everything that’s been made in circulation.

"We have to adopt electrification to achieve decarbonisation, and when we make metals from end-of-life products, we considerably lower greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts. If we lower our carbon footprint and tread lightly by implementing these strategies and consuming less, we can create a win-win outcome.

"The microrecycling science we’ve developed respects what happens to materials at the macro level. Something might be damaged or broken but can be remanufactured into a new product. For example, we’re creating green hybrids which combine different kinds of materials and have the strength requirements to perform in the built environment. By understanding how materials can be used in different ways, we can remanufacture used products to meet performance standards, or to have mechanical properties for specific applications.

"It’s also about inventing new manufacturing solutions that are aligned with recycling – this is what we are doing with our micro-factory technology. We can’t assume the manufacturing processes that created the challenges we’re facing will be part of the solution. Distributed remanufacturing processes allow us to bring all kinds of materials back into circulation, so we can respond to local situation and create locally specific solutions.

"I can imagine that in the future, the built environment would be looking at keeping circular re-manufacturing local, enabling Australian communities to take advantage of the new science being practiced here.

"One of the modules that I have been developing with the team at UNSW can 3D print entirely from waste plastics. We can make all kinds of things for the built environment and remanufacture them when they are damaged or no longer needed. Aligning our work with our values enable us to achieve these goals."