Using the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module in History of Sustainable Design

Rebecca Houze, Northern Illinois University

Course Description

Crosslisted as ENVS 361X. History, theory, and criticism of design, sustainability, and the environment from the 18th century to the present.

Explore the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module »

Relationship of the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module to Your Course

The module is implemented in week 12 of a 16-week course. In the first weeks of the semester students learn about problems related to urban planning, housing, new materials, and product design from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s. The problem of waste becomes most apparent in the historical period following the Second World War in relation to increased consumption in the United States. Before the beginning of the module, students were encouraged to begin thinking about a designed product and a particular phase of its lifecycle to investigate. The concept of wicked problems and the "cradle to cradle" model are also introduced from the point of view of design.

Integrating the Module into Your Course

We used the module "A Zero Waste Circular Economy" as the fourth unit of our course. The first three units examined the contradiction of industrialization in the 19th and early 20th centuries, planning sustainable communities in the interwar period and new approaches to design following the Second World War.

What Worked Well

The students enjoyed the personal waste audit, which they found very eye-opening. Many pointed out that they did not have recycling or composting systems in their current living situations and regretted that they threw out so much trash.

Challenges and How They Were Addressed

One challenge we faced was the lack of a standardized method for quantifying recycled, landfilled, or composted materials. For example, some students counted 30 facial tissues as 30 paper items, while others considered several tissues as one item. In the future, I plan to clarify this before beginning the audit to ensure more useful data. The unit also may have been more effective for my class if I had incorporated some economic perspectives on linear versus circular economies. I have readings that address this, which I plan to incorporate next time. This semester, we used William McDonough and Michael Braungart's book "Cradle to Cradle" to explore these concepts. Students found wicked problems somewhat confusing, partly due to the complexity of the assigned reading by Richard Buchanan who, as a designer and design historian, had a design-thinking point of view. I may seek different materials to support this conversation in the future. For example, not all products make their way to the consumer via retail. Thus, I need to explain that that particular stage of a product's lifecycle can be understood in different ways. I've heard the word distribution, which I think is helpful, but one must also consider designs that are one of a kind, such as gifts, which are also important in design history. Another issue arose with students' uncertainty about how to convey their research in a product map. The presentations varied widely, from sophisticated graphic designs to hand-drawn sketches. Some students chose to study the entire lifecycle of a product, while others focused on specific phases. The presentations were a bit uneven in that sense.

Student Response to the Module and Activities

Students generally enjoyed this module. I was worried that it might be too simple, like something they had already done in high school, but even those that had done the exercise before seemed to get something out of it. While I believe they grasped the purpose of the module, I hope to integrate it more seamlessly into the overall class structure in the future. The students appreciated some of the videos I showed, such as NPR's "Planet Money Makes A T-Shirt" documentary, which demonstrates through interviews with workers in Columbia, Bangladesh, and the United States, that making a T-shirt in the global economy represents the whole world. It is a very moving and powerful documentary. A key revelation for me was that the stages of the product lifecycle provided a clear framework for understanding design, from material extraction to product planning, manufacturing, distribution, and disposal. Overall, it was a valuable learning experience.