Last week, three years of arguing with industry finally paid off, as the European standard EN45554 was published. This official document with an unexciting name details ”general methods for the assessment of the ability to repair, reuse and upgrade energy-related products.” In plain English, it’s a standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff. It’s also a huge milestone for the fight for fair repair.

The EU is currently engaged in two transformations that could change our economy and society for the better. If managed well, and in unison, the circular economy and the digital revolution could help the EU address its greatest challenge: to build a sustainable, green economy that is competitive on the global stage.

Materiaalitori is intended for the professional exchange of waste and production side streams from companies and organisations. Materiaalitori also allows searching for and offering related services, such as waste management and specialist services. Those working in the field can use Materiaalitori transparently and free of charge.

Digitalisation will not automatically lead to greater sustainability. Nor is the inclusion of cutting-edge technologies in the circular economy a given.

But with the right encouragement and incentives from the EU, data and digitally-enabled solutions can accelerate and boost the transition to a sustainable circular economy. They can enhance connectivity and information sharing; make business models, products and processes more circular; and empower citizens and consumers to contribute to the transition. They can be used to improve different segments of the circular economy, including design, production, consumption, reuse, repair, remanufacturing, and overall waste management and recycling.

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 In Catalonia alone, every day, 720,000 kg of food is thrown away. This wasted food, totaling 260,000 tons per year, is equivalent to the food needs of 500,000 people for one year. Remix el Barrio was born with the ambition to propose a learning space to encourage and nurture new practices based on food-waste crafts. It is the result of a pilot program where various designers learn about biomaterial design and explore projects with food scraps using artisanal techniques and digital fabrication. Remix El Barrio was created in the regenerative district of Poblenou, more specifically in the ecosystem of Fab Lab Barcelona, where designers united to co-produce new forms of crafts from their individual aspirations, benefitting from regular peer-learning sessions, access to machines and tools, and learning from the maker open source culture present all over the place. Each designer has initiated a creative design driven material innovation approach where they identify a recurrent local food waste case, learn about its characteristics, investigate how to best collect and process it, and imagine future applications and material life-cycle narratives.

 Alle Berlinerinnen und Berliner können hier kostenlos und komfortabel stöbern und inserieren und ihre gut erhaltenen Gegenstände verschenken oder tauschen.

We’re introducing each of our four Policy-in-Practice Fund projects with an introductory blog post. Below, Leandro Navarro from eReuse answers a few of our burning questions to give us some insight into the project and what it will achieve. We’re really excited to be working with four groups of incredible innovators and you’ll be hearing a lot more about the projects as they progress.

REUSE >> REFUSE is an audiovisual series bringing the dimension of sound into the discourse on refusal. The series invites four artists to activate the disregarded, unproductive, and leftover in order to assert the value of what is often seen as waste. Each of the contributors has been asked to REUSE >> REFUSE, to produce something new out of what was previously rejected or left on the cutting-room floor. ringing together contributions by Lamin Fofana, Moor Mother, KMRU and Sarvenaz Mostofey, REUSE >> REFUSE will be published in the Almanac for Refusal as well as on the website of NTS Radio  on 21.09.2021.

Refuse and refusal converge in that they both are situated outside of what is considered productive or generative. If refusal traditionally marks a break from an existing status quo through individual or collective acts of withdrawal, refuse is normally considered the residue of, or the leftover from, an act of transformation. They are thus both used to describe acts of rejection, avoidance, negation, yet insist on an alternative or a demand for reform. As refusal can be seen as a demand for an alternative, for new possibilities, can what has been deemed as refuse hold those possibilities within it too?

Our practice is focused on investigating value chains and making waste materials come to life again. This is the rebirth of materials that were once exiled to towering landfills or incinerators.