A brand new affect report particulars the progress of 4 tasks that have been awarded funding as a part of the Round Future Fund, created to seek out pioneering round economic system concepts. 

In 2022, 4 tasks have been every awarded grants of between £150,000 – £300,000, from 245 functions, to develop their progressive options that challenged the ‘make…use…throw-away’ tradition of recent society. The £1 million fund was made doable by the gross sales of 10p plastic luggage via the John Lewis Partnership. 

Serving to menstrual cups go mainstream, redesigning youngsters’s footwear to make them last more, creating ‘lend and mend’ hubs in libraries and enabling polyester to be recycled repeatedly have been the successful tasks chosen by an unbiased Grant Fund panel of business specialists. Every winner was then supported by Hubbub to develop and obtain their ambitions.

The profitable tasks have every reported vital progress with confirmed outcomes that go away a powerful legacy for his or her respective industries. By sharing their learnings and challenges within the report, they hope to encourage others to observe of their footsteps in direction of making a extra round economic system. 

Key outcomes from every mission are detailed beneath:

DAME – Serving to menstrual cups go mainstream 

The right round sustainable interval product, the menstrual cup, has existed for many years, but it stays a distinct segment product that solely 5% of individuals with intervals use.¹  DAME aimed to interrupt down the obstacles to utilizing menstrual cups. They gained perception of the obstacles to cup use, via surveys and a small person group trial, figuring out the principle considerations as consolation, leaking, and inserting a menstrual cup, plus cleansing it. 

The distinction made: 

• To assist fight these obstacles, the mission created a myth-busting cup person information, that includes Hayley Morris which is seen 4,500 instances per day.
• DAME additionally designed a groundbreaking self-sanitising menstrual cup, eradicating the necessity to boil or sterilise cups. Launched in June, the self-sanitising interval cup has achieved a number of ISO requirements to show its security and effectiveness. 
• Every cup is predicted to contribute 99 instances much less carbon over its lifetime² (in comparison with boiling a standard cup) and avoids the necessity for two,860 disposable interval merchandise³ per particular person over a lifetime of intervals.
• Subsequent DAME are exploring charity partnerships to see if the cup might be out there to these experiencing interval poverty, and sharing the person information content material with educators to assist extra youngsters to try to stick to menstrual cups. 

PIP & HENRY – Redesigning youngsters’s footwear to make them last more 

Pip & Henry’s analysis and improvement mission explored extending the life of youngsters’s footwear. Younger youngsters substitute footwear each 4 months, whereas 85% of footwear at present find yourself in landfill ⁴. Pip & Henry’s mission aimed to discover two options to disrupt the kids’s footwear business.

The distinction made:

• Over the 12 months interval, Pip & Henry truly developed three ideas to work in direction of their imaginative and prescient of an expandable shoe and shoe that may be extra cleanly separated into their part supplies and subsequently extra simply recycled. 
• They hope to launch a capsule assortment in 2024 and are exploring licensing ideas to assist scale their round shoe improvements.
• The mission has supplied in-depth information concerning the environmental impacts of footwear manufacturing strategies and materials improvements, plus methods to design for higher finish of life recycling.
• Pip & Henry plan to share their learnings and insights with the footwear manufacturing and recycling industries, to assist create an business step change to extra round shoe designs

SCOTTISH LIBRARY AND INFORMATION COUNCIL (SLIC) – Establishing ‘lend and mend hubs’ in Scottish libraries  

SLIC’s mission aimed to create a community of lend and mend hubs throughout Scotland to help communities to restore, reuse, hire and upcycle on a regular basis objects.

The distinction made

• 9 hubs have been created, with early indications counsel hubs have the potential to achieve round 2,000 individuals per 12 months via stitching and mending courses alone.
• All libraries are providing tools, workshops, and instruments freed from cost to beat value obstacles for the general public, making on a regular basis round economic system actions extra accessible. 
• The hubs are fitted out with circularity in thoughts, utilizing repurposed workplace furnishings saving 5 tCO₂₅ in comparison with shopping for new⁶ and upcycled peg boards that have been a part of Kenya’s show at COP26 in Glasgow.

SLIC plan to create a toolkit, disseminated via workshops, to share their learnings and assist different library companies throughout the UK replicate their method. 

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS – Innovating know-how to allow polyester to be recycled repeatedly   

Polyester is the world’s most typical textile fibre and but solely 15% of polyester produced is comprised of recycled polyester (principally from plastic bottles) ⁷. At the moment there is no such thing as a true circularity within the polyester business as a result of the dyes in polyester imply it can’t be simply eliminated which prevents it being recycled again into new virgin polyester fibre. The College of Leeds’s innovation created new novel ‘switchable-solubility’ dyes that allows them to be switched from water-soluble to water-insoluble to color and de-colour polyester.

The distinction made 

• The analysis proves the dyes might be each added to, and faraway from polyester, enabling the dye, water and material to be recycled with large potential environmental advantages, needing much less power and water use, and eradicating the necessity for auxiliary chemical compounds within the dyeing course of.
• The introduction of the brand new CO₂ know-how delivers a very round course of that has the potential to recycle immediately and mechanically a number of the 57 million tonnes of polyester fibre produced globally annually⁸.
• The College of Leeds additionally made a bonus discovery, in that their know-how additionally works on different materials resembling denim and current dyes in polyester.
• Subsequent the mission plans to scale the know-how to check at industrial scale, plus full a full environmental lifecycle evaluation.
• The College of Leeds will share their discoveries with the textile and recycling sectors, plus exploring commercialising the know-how to maximise its attain and affect.

Marija Rompani, Director of Ethics and Sustainability on the John Lewis Partnership stated: “The Round Future Fund allowed us to attach and help main innovators to boost their round enterprise fashions and drive the shift in circularity throughout the business and society. I’m so excited to share their findings, and hopefully that is just the start of the affect that every of the successful tasks may have.”

Saskia Restorick, Director at Hubbub stated: “The 4 tasks, whereas very completely different in nature, shared an ambition to deliver progressive, artistic and entrepreneurial approaches to designing out waste of their respective sectors. This forward-thinking fund, together with the winners’ arduous work and dedication has enabled them to seek out tangible options and achieve large quantities of perception and information. It has been a pleasure working with them and seeing their concepts come to life. We sit up for seeing how they develop and to sharing their successes to encourage much more innovation to hurry up the transition to a extra round economic system.”

The Round Future Fund aimed to determine innovation and problem the established order, to spice up the round economic system. The 4 tasks have delivered on their ambitions, go away a powerful legacy and supply tangible examples of the round economic system in motion. 

To seek out out extra concerning the 4 tasks, their affect and legacy, the Round Future Fund affect report might be seen at  hubbub.org.uk.

Notes
[1] ‘UK Female Hygiene and Sanitary Safety Merchandise Market Report 2021’ Mintel
[2] Primarily based upon unbiased evaluation by Local weather Associate, a standard cup boiled would use 41.9514 kg CO2e over 10 years if boiled for 7-10 minutes, versus washing a DAME cup in chilly water would use 0.4357 kg CO2e.
[3] Assuming 22 disposables per cycle and 13 menstrual cycles per 12 months, so 286 disposables/ 12 months/ per particular person.
[4] Centre for Sustainable Manufacturing and Reuse/recycling Applied sciences (SMART) Loughborough College (2007), Recycling of Footwear Merchandise, A place paper.
[5] Utilizing 31 repurposed workplace desks, 7 assembly tables and 102 chairs saves over 5 tCO2 in comparison with shopping for new[1],
[6] Primarily based on FIRA Research into the Feasibility of Benchmarking Carbon Footprints of Furnishings Merchandise 2011
[7] Textile Change, 2021, Most popular Supplies and Fibre report https://textileexchange.org/app/uploads/2021/08/Textile-Exchange_Preferred-Fiber-and-Supplies-Market-Report_2021.pdf
[8] maia analysis, 2021 – World Polyester Fiber Market Report 2021. Custom-made report