Encouraging Reuse in Cities

A key challenge of a more sustainable economy is to motivate consumers to feed products back into circulation. Increasingly, companies establish take-back programs to secure access to high-quality secondary material.

This project analyses successful industry take-back systems to develop a take-back design toolkit. This toolkit then guides the co-design of a mobile sharing shelf for the non-profit resource circulation initiative Zündstoffe Dresden.

Project Type: Internship Thesis

Project Period: 10/2023 - 8/2024

Project Partners:
HolyPoly, Zündstoffe Dresden, Konglomerat e.V., tuuwi (TU Dresden Umwelt Initiative), Slub Makerspace

Warehouse Surveys

Collaborative surveys on user experience circulating materials through Zündstoffe.
Co-Mapping Workshops

Identifying used material for reuse in Dresden through collective knowledge
User Workshops

Co-developing ideas how Zündstoffe could support more material recirculation in Dresden .
Vision Dinner Zündstoffe

Develop a shared vision for material circulation based on research results.

In-Depth-Process

How can industrial take-back design strategies
inform local resource reuse?

1

Summarize Best Practices

„My task […] is to create a user experience that is enjoyable and easy, so that people […] not simply throw their items in the trash, which is much quicker, much less costly, and much easier, but rather […] send it to us"

Take-Back Expert

Interviewer sitting at a pc looking through notes

To uncover the nearly untapped library of tried-and-tested design strategies for recirculation of materials the project started with:

a literature review on take-back-systems
2 semi-structured expert interviews with take-back designers on their design process
5 semi-structured user interviews on success factors in existing take-back system designs

Results were summarized in a a toolkit for designing take-back systems that integrates key elements and provides guiding questions and recommendations. The design perspective enables a new focus on the front-end of take-back-systems, highlighting convenience and incentives.

2

Understand Material Recirculation
with Citizen Collectives

Person adding information to a pre-printed mind map

Person writing on a flipchart named "Zündstoffe 2035"

The project partner initiative Zündstoffe recirculates used materials through a warehouse once a week. Opportunities for a Zündstoffe-owned take-back system were scoped through:

Analysis of donations, sales and CO₂-equivalent data
2 warehouse surveys on donation experience and desired materials,
2 workshops on urban stocks to identify collaboration partners and
1 co-design workshop with users.

Discussing the results in a vision dinner with Zündstoffe, the goal for the system was set to primarily raise awareness for unused urban stocks while also encouraging reuse while increasing outreach and turnover for Zündstoffe.

Warehouse Survey “Wish Material”
Warehouse Survey “Donation Experience”
Workshop “Hidden Urban Stocks” @SLUB
Workshop “Hidden Urban Stocks” @Lagersause
Co-Design Workshop with Users
Business Case Analysis

3

A Mobile Sharing Shelf
to Encourage Resource Reuse

Sharing shelf with graffiti and a messy drawer that's been drawn out.

Table with different options for different parts of the take-back-system and different options marked with dots

Project insights were then applied to design a take-back system for Zündstoffe, that could be realized by the citizen collective within the next two years.

Constructed from reused materials in a circular design workshop with Zündstoffe and local education partners, it can be rented by institutions, collectives or residents for three to six months.

While in a neighbourhood, it offers daily opportunities to swap materials in existing parking spaces. At the end of the rental period, Zündstoffe and the municipal waste service collect any remaining items and prepare the shelf for its next location, raising awareness of their work and exploring sites for more permanent solutions.