Manifesto by Christian Rudolph

Nov 11, 2010

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas,

but in escaping the old ones, which ramify,
for those brought up as most of us have been,
into every corner of our minds.”
John Maynard Keynes
 2

Did
North Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles
every hour.1

Years it takes organic materials to break down: 0,5

Years it takes an aluminium can to break down: 500
Years it takes a plastic bag to break down: Never2

You
There is more plastic in the oceans,
than there is plankton.3

On average, 84% of all household waste can be re-

cycled.4

Know
In six days, urban India produces an amount of waste
that equals twice the weight of the Empire State Building.5

The total volume of solid waste produced in the US each

year is equal to the weight of more than 247,000 space

?
shuttles, or 2.3 million Boeing 747 jumbo jets.6

Burying 15,000 tones of trash in the earth creates one

job, while recycling the same amount creates 9 jobs.7

1 www.green-networld.com

2 www.brandeins.de

3 www.canada.com/calgaryherald

4 www.planetpals.com

5 www.wasteventures.org

6 www.environmentalistseveryday.org

7 www.treehugger.com
 3
Introduction
Influenced by Thomas Robert Malthusʼ “An
Essay on the Principle of Population” from
1798, the Club of Rome initiated a research
project, which asked to model the conse-
quences of rapid population growth with finite
resource supplies. The alarming results got
worldwide attention when first published in
“The Limits to Growth”, authored by Donella
Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers
and William Berehns III in 1972.
Meanwhile, there is broad consensus that the
limits to the use of non-renewable resources
are not, as previously thought, the danger of
the resources simply running out. Instead,
limits have more to do with the environmental
impacts of mining, processing and consuming
8
resources. Not only are mining and process-
ing resources the main driver of CO2 emis-
sions, they also find their way to everyone of
us; in form of goods and products we value,
use and take for granted. When lost purpose,
these goods and products become waste or
they get recycled.
Recycling helps the environment, because it
saves space in landfill sites, reduces pollution
substantially, and even creates business. We
also know that recycling saves energy and
raw materials. Recycling aluminium cans, for
instance, saves the tropical rainforests from
further devastation, because these areas are
often mined for bauxite (the ore used to make
aluminium). Besides recycling products where
possible, we can help to reduce our envi-
ronmental footprint through the re-use of pro-
ducts, more efficient consumption of energy
8 Often disregarded, but of importance as well, are limits to renewable
resources. They are identified by estimating surplus, while also ensur-
ing that other functions of the ecosystem are protected. In the case of
wood, f.e. forests play an important role in protecting watersheds, soil
stability and biodiversity.
and raw materials used in manufacturing or by
reducing the amount of waste we produce.
THE WASTE HIERARCHY
The waste hierarchy based on differences in
environmental impact, agreed on by the Euro-
pean Waste Coalition in 2005.9
Reduce: Less waste produced through optimised
production or adapted consumption.
Reuse: Using materials repeatedly.
Recycle: Using materials to make new products.
Recovery: Recovering energy from waste.
Disposal: Landfilled or burned waste.
Repair: Reassembling of used goods.
Although governments worldwide are trying to
increase the amount of waste that is recycled
through national legislation, the perception of
waste is that of a liability, not a resource.
In 2009, the average European consumer
threw away about 520 kilograms of domestic
10
garbage. To date, most of this waste is
dumped into landfill sites. Landfilled waste
produces the second most important green-
house gas, methane.
In 2005, the European Union (EU) Waste
Strategy commitment said "the long term goal
is for the EU to become a recycling society,
organised around the maximum recovery of
materials, where this makes environmental
and economic sense."
The only question is, what is environmentally
and economically sense making, when talking
about something that is widely perceived as
being without purpose and value (=waste)?
This manifesto claims to give an answer to
this question.
9 Members of the coalition: Confederation of European Paper Industry
(CEPI), European Compost Network (ECN), European Environmental
Bureau (EEB), European Tyre Recycling Association (ETRA) and
Groupement Européen de I'Industrie de la Régéneration (GEIR)
10 http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/waste
 4
Global Waste
Ideas
Naturally, the creation of wealth through in-
dustrial value chains defines waste as a by-
product. Naturally? No. Waste is more than a
by-product; it is a human habit; one that we
have developed and sophisticated, since the
emergence of industrialisation, neglected by
large-scale production on globalised markets,
and demanded by modern consumption. Hu-
man kind is the only kind on earth producing
waste. In nature, every “waste” is nutrient for
another process. In nature, causes and ef-
fects of material flows are drawn in infinite
circles. That is why talking about “human-
generated” trash, garbage, litter, waste, is
somehow misleading. Foremost, waste is
everything that lost purpose from humansʼ
point of view and is not utilised elsewhere. But
does losing purpose mean, losing value, too?
Positively speaking, we could say that besides
contaminating land and water sources,
spreading diseases and increasing CO2 emis-
sions, waste just is a resource that is not ef-
fectively utilised. What if we could make peo-
ple realise that “the life” of something man-
made does/should/must not end when reach-
ing the end of its initial purpose? We certainly
do not have to apologise for our existence or
the technological progress of human kind, but
ignorance only is bliss until you know better.
Our current practices of waste disposal are
not worth being taking for granted. Shall we
really settle for seeing consumption as a one-
way road that ends on a landfill?
That is why Global Waste Ideas (GWI) was
founded in 2010. GWI is an online idea-
sharing platform for innovative ways to deal
with waste. By making creative and original
ideas of dealing with waste visible, the aim is
to broaden peoplesʼ perception of waste as a
valuable commodity and resource for more
sustainable production, restorative business
or even social entrepreneurship. By making
waste-dealing ideas visible worldwide, GWI
questions the current industrial paradigm of
cradle-to-grave and enforces cross-cultural
collaboration. We want to show that everyone
makes a difference, especially when it comes
to a global issue like waste.
GLOBAL WASTE IDEAS MISSION STATEMENT
“GWI is a worldwide idea-sharing platform for
innovative ways to deal with waste. By making
creative and original ideas visible, we broaden
people’s perception of waste as a valuable
commodity and enforce cross-cultural collabor-
ation from bottom up.”
GWI does not claim to manage gathering all
innovative waste ideas existing, but we are
certain that the platform will initiate a discus-
sion about the human habit waste and how it
differs on a global scale. This discussion not
only will raise awareness for the envi-
ronmental facts, but also change the public
perception of waste, making it relevant as a
valuable commodity and embodiment for hu-
man kindʼs stage of progress into a more sus-
tainable future.
We are neither optimists, nor pessimists, but
serious possibilists with a vision. One day,
GWI shall become a supranational collective
intelligence and sense-making hub, catalysing
bottom-up movements for sustainable behav-
iour, in a world where the use of the word
waste has become obsolete.
What are innovative ways to deal with waste?
To frame the scope of the ideas worth spread-
ing, throughout this manifesto labelled pic-
 5
tures will give an indication of the wide variety
of ideas of how people deal with waste inno-
vatively worldwide.
Next, four case examples (Skeleton Sea,
Biomer Plastics Reprocessing, Peepoople &
Fertiloo) are highlighted in more detail. The
ideas differ in terms of origin, background,
challenge, implementation and impact, but
certainly not in quality.
Skeleton Sea11
Background
A group of three surfers realised that their fa-
vourite surfing spot in the Azores became
more and more littered, thus they started col-
lecting trash from beaches and the ocean.
After separating the waste, a pile of flip-flops
reminded them of the skin of a fish. In less
than 24 hours, they built an artificial fish, right
on the beach. When asked what to do with it
by the local people, they answered that they
would release it into the sea.
11 www,skeletonsea.com
Challenge
Next to toxic materials, plastic waste is the
biggest threat to the oceans. Because plastic
does not decompose, every single plastic par-
ticle will stay in the water for good and will
often find its way back to its maker, when ab-
sorbed by fish. Founders statement: “We want
to raise awareness for a cleaner ocean. Plas-
tic does not disappear in the water. It takes a
flip-flop 1,000 years to disappear. By now, the
constant flow of human garbage reaches the
deepest and most remote regions on this
planet.” According to UNO statistics, every
square kilometre of ocean contains 120,000
pieces of floating plastic. In certain parts of
the ocean, there is six times more plastic than
plankton. And yet, macro-waste is still not
classified as pollution by law. Mankind turns
the sea into a giant waste bin.
Idea
Using waste that has been collected from the
oceans as an artwork raw material to raise
awareness for water pollution.
Implementation
Three European surfers, who work as artists,
create sea-life sculptures and exhibit them
publicly or release them to the oceans.
Impact
Raising awareness on ocean pollution. The
artwork is presented on several art-exhibitions
worldwide. In 2010 “The Aquarium” in the
Basque town of San Sebastian showed 20
pieces of the artists. More than 3,500 visitors
and enormous media attention through Span-
ish TV and newspapers, helped spreading the
message of “keeping the oceans clean!” to an
even wider audience.
 6

Biomer Plastic Reprocessing12 The valley was the industrial heartland of min-
ing, before rapid decline after the events of
the minerʼs strikes in the 1980s.

Impact
A clean, cost effective plastic recycling that
would considerably reduce the amount of
waste exported and potentially revitalise a
local economy.

Fertiloo13 & Peepoople14

Background
BPR claims our perception of waste as merely
rubbish, and not as a valuable commodity, to
be the biggest obstacle, solving our waste
problem. The UK is still one of the biggest
contributors for the amount of waste entering
landfills in the EU. More than half of consumer
goods are packaged in plastic. Currently the
vast majority of plastics are shipped to Hong
Kong, before reprocessed in China.

Challenge
The challenge is twofold. On the one hand,
due to the decline in mining industry in the
UK, people in the Rother Valley face unem-
ployment, loss of livelihood and social prob-
lems. On the other hand, it is to find a substi-
tute for shipping used consumer goods that Background
contain PET abroad, by taking part in the PET According to the WHO, more than three billion
reprocessing market. people in the world have no access to im-
proved sanitation. As a consequence, open
Idea defecation is widely practiced, contaminating
BPR takes a common PET plastic bottle and water-sources and spreading preventable
upcycles it to biodegradable plastic pellets, water-born diseases.
which are used to manufacture medical
equipment or perishable food packaging. Challenge
Industrial sanitation solutions are too expen-
Implementation sive for developing countries and often disre-
BPR is currently seeking funding to build a gard local sanitation habits.
test facility near Sheffield, United Kingdom.
13 extreme.stanford.edu

12 www.idircatalog.net 14 www.peepoople.com

Idea
Both ideas give access to improved sanitation
by designing a low-tech solution. Peepoople is
a biodegradable slim bag, which is used as a
mobile toilet. An inside layer of sterile material
prevents all contact with the excrement and
guarantees the bag to be odor-free for at least
24 hours.
The Fertiloo is a lightweight compost latrine,
which is installed at Kenyan farms. Its design
considers traditional sanitation habits and
“human waste” can later be used as fertiliser.
Implementation
Peepoople AB was founded 2006 and is
based in Stockholm, Sweden. Research for
the Peepoo toilet-bag has been conducted in
cooperation with the Swedish University of
Agricultural Science and the Royal Institute of
Technology. It will be available in early-2011.
The Fertiloo was designed by the Kenyan
social entrepreneur organisation Nuru and
costs less than $100, which is the amount of
money saved by not having to buy industrial
fertiliser.
ATTACHED DOOR
PLATFORM LID
GASKET
COMPOSTING LID
BASE
URINE CATCHER
Impact
Safely collecting and reusing human waste
not only reduces family health expenses and
improves quality of life, but also helps saving
20% of the annual income currently spent on
industrial fertiliser and topsoil.
7
Dimensions of
Sustainability
Global Waste Ideas (GWI) is no sustainability
project. Probably, observation and visualisa-
tion of innovative cases will not have an im-
mediate impact on how people behave. Deal-
ing and handling waste, that is already there,
just limitedly has to do with preserving a heal-
thy ecosystem for the generations to come.
Still, collecting “waste ideas” worldwide is of
paramount importance, because all current
strategies and visions of a sustainable future
disregard an essential fact. Imagine a world,
where economy runs sustainably, supply
chains are cyclical and wealth is created with-
out harming the environment. As desirable as
this sound, it seems like no one in this vision-
ary picture ever asked, what happens to all
goods and products that we possess already
today? What happens with landfills containing
the goods and products of the industrial age?
That is why we need to observe and develop
ideas of dealing with waste, today! Practically
speaking, GWI is a tool that is needed in the
transition to a sustainable economy and soci-
ety. Idealistically speaking, GWI wants to
change the definition and everyoneʼs percep-
tion of waste as a liability (as something to get
rid of) to waste as a commodity.
!
! One composting lid
with gasket
! Two bases
! Two urine catchers
Aymar Ccopacatty (Lake Titicaka, Peru): Pre-
serving an ancient spinning and weaving tech-
nique, using waste instead of expensive and
scarce cotton.
 8
Who will be other players on the path to sus-
tainability? It is doubtful that the transition to a
sustainable economy, will be led by those or-
ganisations and people, that believe in the
infinite success of capital markets and double-
digit, exponential growth rates. “We cannot
solve a problem at the level at which it was
created”, Albert Einstein said. Applied to sus-
tainability, that means we cannot grow or ret-
rofit our way out of the current dilemma,
hence we cannot use the same linear, non-
holistic approaches that created the condi-
tions of todayʼs economic and societal global
system in the first place. What is required is
whole-system thinking; something that is dis-
cussed on broader stages for some time now.
Recently, a lot of phenomena indicated the
beginnings of this paradigm shift, which have
to be differentiated according their import-
ance, quality and impact.
Senseable Trash (Seattle, USA): GSM-tracking
of trash movements to understand the "re-
moval-chain" in urban areas.
We see interdisciplinary, systemic concepts
and holistic theories arising, which aim at the
big picture perspective of current issues in
complex societies and the ecosystem we live
in. These concepts, which are indeed vision-
ary and sense making, often embody them-
selves in popular science papers, books, key-
15
note speeches, blogs or conferences.
InterfaceFLOR (West Yorkshire, UK): First
commercial carpet manufacturer that takes
back its products after use to reuse them, cre-
ating a real industrial lifecycle.
If we look closer, we soon will see that a
transfer of those concepts into reality often
fails or is not even tried. No wonder, if we
consider the common circumstances and
venues under those concepts are discussed:
There is time to reflect on questions and an-
swers, a current overall sentiment that favours
holistic, interdisciplinary approaches and
likeminded audiences that listen. There is time
to prepare, discuss, ask and retrospect after-
wards. There is no immediate claim that con-
cepts work right away. I certainly do not want
to argue about long-term effects of these
“mind-products”, but they often tend to lack a
transition strategy with an impact not only on
the imaginative future, but on the quite pres-
ent.
One of the more promising examples, for a
systemic approach to the future of sustainable
business, is Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C), devel-
oped and initiated by the industrial design
team of German chemist Michael Braungart
15 ...and manifests, of course.

and U.S. architect William McDonough. What
they propose, is that all products we design
and produce should be waste-free. To under-
stand their concept fully, a better understand-
ing of their definition of waste is needed. To
Braungart and McDonough, the remains of a
product and its various components after use
are not (useless) waste, but, as in natural sys-
tems, nutrients for another process. To them,
waste consists rather of all end-of-life outputs
that are organic nutrients, i.e., “food” for a
natural system, or technical nutrients, i.e.,
“food” for an industrial system. Compost is an
example of food for a natural system, while
the materials in for instance electronics (pre-
cious metals, plastics, etc.) are for an in-
dustrial system.
Seaventures (Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia):
A former oil-digging rig getting a second life as
scuba-diving hotel.
What makes their visionary approach powerful
is that they at the same time offer a set of in-
struments and strategies for immediate action.
To achieve a cyclical supply chain, new pro-
duct development has to be changed in such
a way, that all product components, when
used, can become part of the natural system
(being biodegradable) or can be used as raw
16
material again (easy disassembling).
of downcycling (recycling) products or dispos-
16 A consequence would be, the total redesign of all products currently
produced, so that they are developed being “waste-free” from scratch.
9
ing them, they would be upcycled (reused as
an input material of higher value). Braungart
and McDonough already started to identify
those chemicals that would fit the require-
ments of easy disassembling or biodegrada-
bility. Moreover, through their organisation
EPEA, they have started to identify C2C pro-
ducts, certify C2C businesses and consult
governments on how to implement C2C into
public legislation.
Ubico Studio (Tel Aviv, Israel): Sustainable fur-
niture solely made from recycled materials.
It might be too early to label the current his-
torical thrust, because it is too subtle, but glo-
bal themes are emerging in response to in-
creasing economic and ecological crises and
visibility of social inequalities. We are in a glo-
bal process of redefinition and sense making
of sustainability, while questioning the superi-
ority of the industrial paradigm. These ideas
not only indicate the need for radical social
change, the reinvention of market-based eco-
Instead
nomics, activism on all levels and the need for
localised economic control, but also trigger a
new quality of organisations. We begin to
identify current phenomena as an indicator for
 10
this shift. Social business, initiatives for de-
centralisation and autonomy in energy supply,
innovation through human-centred design
thinking, crowd-funding platforms as an alter-
native to financial investors, open source
movements building on the wisdom of the
crowds and public-private-partnerships are
just a few examples.
Earthship Biotecture (New Mexico, USA): Using
discarded materials to build self-sufficient, off-
the-grid housing.
Some even see human kind at a threshold in
existence, a fundamental change in under-
standing of our relationship to nature and
each other. In a best-case scenario, this will
lead us from a world created by privilege, to a
world created by community.
In “The Ecology of Commerce”, Paul Hawken
puts it similarly: “(T)here are insistent calls for
autonomy, appeals for a new resource ethic
based on the tradition of the commons, de-
mands for the reinstatement of cultural pri-
macy over corporate hegemony, and a rising
demand for radical transparency in politics
and corporate decision making. (…) It has
been said that environmentalism failed as a
movement, or worse yet, died. It is the other
way around. Everyone on earth will be an en-
vironmentalist in the not too distant future,
driven there by necessity and experience.”
New Growth
In the past two centuries, industrial revolution
has transformed the world in ways, both good
and bad. But as human population grows and
the global “sink” capacity to absorb waste
shrinks, the design principles we obey to
since the industrial revolution are becoming
constantly more problematic. From this per-
spective, sustainable development can be
seen as the logical successor to the industrial
revolution. More specifically, we are already in
the position to define purposes of a post-
industrial revolution - one conceptual, the
other practical.
Conceptually, we seek for a set of design
principles, appropriate to a world whose popu-
lation is expected to nearly reach ten billion by
2050, when looking at UNO projections.
Practically, we apply methods and practices to
restore the unintended negative conse-
quences of industrialisation. From this point of
view, sustainable development implies a new
and healthier balance in how we make sense
of our human affairs. This balance must be
ambidextrous, celebrating community along
with individuality, materialism along with spiri-
tuality, and art along with linear technique.
If the industrial age pursued growth in terms
of width and quantity, sustainability age must
pursue growth in depth and quality – or like
ecological economist Herman Daly puts it in
his book “Beyond Growth” in 1996: “We need
a shift in our vision of how the economic ac-
tivities of human beings are related to the
natural world. This change in vision involves
replacing the economic norm of quantitative
expansion (growth), with that of qualitative
improvement (development), as the path of
future progress. This shift is resisted by most
economic and political institutions, which are
 11

founded on traditional quantitative growth us, certainly most of all people on earth with-
and legitimately fear its replacement by some- out an academic background in economics,
thing as subtle and challenging as qualitative lost track of causes and effects in the system.
17
development.” Hence, we agreed on certain variables (i.e.
income maximisation) and followed certain
heuristics (i.e. short-term orientation), to cre-
ate statistical certainty.
The dilemma of private economic responsi-
bility is that we have allowed our suppliers to
enlarge our economic boundaries so far that
we cannot be (or at least feel) responsible for
our effects on the world. “Todayʼs elaborate
markets systems have effectively alienated us
from our roots while wasting our earth”,
Blikvanger (Venlo, The Netherlands): Encour-
claimed poet and farmer Wendell Berry in his
aging children to put litter in a bin by making it
enjoyable. essay “Conservation Is Good Work” back in
1993. Instead a (good) business should find
“the shortest, simplest way between the earth,
Sustainable development is not only about
the hands and the mouth.”
securing the welfare of future generations or
balancing Economics, Equity and Envi-
18
ronment - it is about formulating the design
principles of the post-industrial age.
Design principles for this revolution have a
vertical (quality), as well as a horizontal
(quantity) dimension. So far, as a society, we
are highly sophisticated when it comes to the
horizontal dimension. But life is not only tech-
nical and objective; it is also soulful and sub-
jective. Our conception of a more sustainable
future needs to live up to these “vertical” di-
mensions of human experience - a task,
which is challenging and hardly imaginable,
Burrowburrow (Rhode Island, USA): Creating
looking at our current economic model and animal inspired sculptures from broken elec-
narrow-minded growth-mindset. tronics and machine parts.

Why does it seem almost illegitimate to think
of an economy that thrives for quality and fa-
vours humility, instead of quantitative growth?
One essential reason might be that global ec-
onomy has become so complex, that most of
17 Bold words added
Taking Berry seriously, this would mean to
think of redefining our economic boundaries
and shorten our supply lines, thus we literally
know where we are economically. “The closer
we live to the ground that we live from, the

18 Or analogously: Profit, People, Planet

 12

19
more we know about our economic life” , the
more able we will be to take responsibility for
it.
The Junkman (Vermont, USA): Trained percus-
sionist and composer uses discarded materials
to produce tones not available in traditional
instruments.
To rebuild an economy that honours the peo-
ple and the ecology on which it depends, in-
volves a thoroughly reconstruction of the
commercial ties and connections that bind
and separate us. It is one thing for corpora-
tions to promote individual responsibility as a
means to “save the earth”, but quite another
for an enterprise to design itself so that choi-
ces are enlarged, and actions taken are just.
This mindset is the main motivational driver
for GWI. By making innovative, surprisingly
creative and powerful waste-dealing ideas
visible worldwide, we not only question the
current industrial paradigm, which embodies
in waste, but also show how single people,
local communities and restorative organisa-
tions already apply, what is often not even
thought of by others. Every idea presented on
the platform, will have the potential to initiate a
change in mindset and to raise awareness for
a life that is sustainable and more natural.
GWI will show design solutions, proving the
possibility of achieving better (more sustain-
able), with less (capital and environmental
impact) for more people. We will enable oth-
ers to imagine a life of qualitative growth,
where having less quantitative growth is truly
more satisfying, more interesting, and of
course, more sustainable.

If changing from linear to systemic or cyclical

processes is a key to redesigning business in
an ecologically sustainable manner, then an
important component of that redesign will be
immediate feedback, personal accountability
and new sense of responsibility. If we would
bring discipline into our personal and house-
hold economy, there might finally be intellec-
tual capacity to appreciate and take personal
responsibility of what we do. If we limit our
economic geography, we will start embracing
what is around us, so that everyone can make
a (consciously) difference.
Waste Land (Jardim Gramacho, Brazil): Movie
portraying a society on the worlds' largest
19 in “Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community” Eight essays by Wendell
landfill in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
Berry (1993)
 13

“Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic

moment, but as an endless succession of surprises, moving
zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage
in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change.
Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform
the world.”
Howard Zinn