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Briton Richard Liddle is taking on the huge problem of plastic waste in his country, and the impact of his efforts is creating a ripple effect --not only in Britain, but around the world. In a terrific Business Week article entitled Richard Liddle’s War on Plastic, the sustainable designer explains how plastic can be turned into a fully recyclable material.
Liddle began exploring the concept of sustainable design as a student, and became convinced that Britain’s use of imported plastic products that were filling up the landfills was such an important issue, he wanted to tackle it. As he saw it, Britain’s landfills were not only filling up with plastic waste, but the country was compounding the problem by importing more and more plastic that in turn, would be dumped.
The article states the problem succinctly: “How, Liddle wanted to know, could all of that plastic waste be turned into something productive, its energy and value reclaimed?”
Liddle then spent two years at London’s Royal College of Art studying the problem and developing a solution—a proprietary process that melds plastic recycling and manufacturing into a single, seamless process.
The designer founded Cohda Design back in his hometown in northeast England, Newcastle. Cohda’s small studio has been fitted with retooled industrial machines that take HDPE plastics, used in myriad household, automotive and packaging products, grind them down, melt them and refashion the molten plastic into chairs and other home furnishings. Richard Liddle refers to this process as URE—uncooled recycled extrude.
Even more importantly, the first chair Liddle has produced, dubbed the RD4 for “roughly drawn,” has drawn raves for its iconic, artistic design. Proof that waste plastic can be made into beautiful, useful objects again.
Better yet: Liddle estimates that his proprietary manufacturing process using waste rather than virgin plastic saves enough energy to give more than 1400 hours of life to a 60-watt bulb. The ultimate goal for Liddle and others like him: the reclamation of lost energy while saving valuable natural resources and zero—or as close to zero as possible--waste.
Liddle firmly believes that most furniture designs created from plastic can be melted down and reused over and over again in fresh, new designs; whereas almost all of the furniture being made today has a specific lifespan, and will end up in landfills when obsolete, recycled plastic can offer a great alternative and a real solution to a pressing problem.
This concept is referred to as “cradle to cradle” cycle. Products and packaging created in this manner feature materials that are perpetually circulated and reused in what industry experts refer to as “closed loops”. This extracts maximum value from materials already in use without ever ending up in landfills, damaging ecosystems.
Coming back to designer Richard Liddle and his next exciting project: He is currently working on what he has dubbed URE Live—a public recycling and manufacturing concept that will debut this coming October at northeast England’s Design Event as part of ‘a yearlong series of sustainable design events and community projects’ known as Design of the Times ’07. For Liddle’s part of the event, the public can bring their plastic trash and have it recycled into various useable new products—on the spot.
The designer envisions the potential for home-based fabrication one day. Ambitious? Yes. Impossible? No. Stay tuned.
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Comments
Ted, although the concept of plastic recycling makes tons of sense, I wonder what the hard dollar "cost" is. Environmentally it makes all the sense in the world, but as you know, if it's not cost effective, it's probably not going to fly. Especially when plastic chairs are coming from China at $5 each.
Now as to the RD-4, art, or eyesore? I'm still debating.
Posted by: Paul Barsch | 06.27.07
Paul,
You're right, of course. Ultimately, for plastics that are not easily reclaimable to be recycled on a mass scale, as Liddell is doing, it has to be cost effective. I believe the Chinese are making the cheap resin chairs out of easily recycled materials. . .not 100% sure.
The point is: with all the recycling we think we're doing, there's still plenty more to be done, so hopefully Liddell's experimentation will lead to others building on his ideas and work to build "the better mousetrap". Meaning: finding the capability to recycle almost everything over time while conserving resources and energy and doing it in a cost effective manner. I'm convinced we can achieve these goals given some time and effort.
As to whether the RD-4 chair is art or not, I leave that up to the Daily Fix readers. Remember the old saying, Paul: "One man's trash is another man's treasure!"
Posted by: Ted Mininni | 06.27.07
I agree with you both here... Paul is right. It has to make sense on another economic level other than for the landfills. But at the same time, as Ted points out, Liddell's experimentation raises the issue. Whether he (or someone else) is successful, it nevertheless starts the conversation.
Given the emphasis on "green" these days... I'd say his timing is pretty good, too.
Posted by: Ann Handley | 06.27.07
You're quite right, Ann. What Liddell is doing will create a spark. There are many great designers, engineers and manufacturers all over the world. Great inventions come from one person building on the ideas and work presented by another person.
Necessity has always been the mother of invention, to quote another old adage. Landfill waste will continue to precipitate us to find viable solutions to our problems. There is great potential here. . .
Posted by: Ted Mininni | 06.27.07
p.s. And I like the chair! Its cool in a fugly kind of way...
Posted by: Ann Handley | 06.27.07
Okay, Paul, Ann calls the chair "cool" so it's more art than eyesore to her!
Posted by: Ted Mininni | 06.27.07
Recycling plastic is obviously not a new thing. People have been doing it for decades. The problem is, as Paul Barsch mentioned, cost. The cost associated with sorting and converting a pound of plastic waste into a pound of usable good (a chair in this case) can easily outstrip the value of the recycled good. At this stage, it would be better to incinerate all the trash from an environmental & economic position, and use the energy generated from that to use less natural gas/oil.
Posted by: Brian Wolfe | 06.28.07
Brian,
Recycling plastic isn't a new thing, as you point out. However, some plastics are recycled and some are not. One solution to eliminate plastic and other waste in some communities is trash to energy plants, as you cited. But some communities are loath to do that until they're sure there aren't any environmental air hazards as a result of that process. In the meantime, every little bit helps and finding inventive new ways to recycle plastics and other waste is never a bad idea. Thanks for your input, Brian.
Posted by: Ted Mininni | 06.28.07
If certain plastics (not sure if it applies to all) are heated to temperatures beyond 220 degrees it will give off an extremely toxic gas. I am not an expert on this but have read it up.
Posted by: David | 03.24.08