Where's my Waste?

What if Marble Plastics waste were treated as a local material resource that could circulate between industries rather than staying within the internal company. This is the concept of circular economies. It challenges the linear process that follows the path of taking materials, producing goods, and eventually throwing them away. This is not the only option that is available for waste streams to take. The idea of industrial symbiosis expands on the idea of connecting organizations so that one company's waste can become a material used for another. This is done by facilitating the exchange of underused materials between businesses so that it may become potential economic value later on. While connecting local businesses and designers with Marble Plastics to create value from the waste seems easy to implement, it relies heavily on designing a system of people, services, infrastructure, and behaviors that make it a reliable system. This conjecture asks whether the larger opportunity is in designing a service and infrastructure rather than a physical product.

References:

Fraccascia, L., Magno, M., & Albino, V. (2016). Business models for industrial symbiosis: A guide for firms. Procedia Environmental Science, Engineering and Management, 3(2), 83–93.