Product design
Consider function, material choice, reuse and realistic end-of-use routes from the outset.
Project archive · Packaging systems
Designing-Out Plastic Waste
A multidisciplinary project exploring how product design, collection, processing and market incentives can work together to prevent avoidable plastic packaging waste.
About the project
This 18-month research project brought together specialists interested in addressing plastic waste in the United Kingdom through design and systems thinking.
The work aimed to develop approaches that prevent waste from plastic packaging while identifying practical opportunities for organisations across the material chain. Its starting point was that waste can reflect gaps in design—not only in the product itself, but also in the systems surrounding it.
Those gaps may include packaging that cannot be readily reused, recycled or treated in an appropriate organic-waste process; collection methods that make correct sorting difficult; recovery technologies without a viable operating model; or market conditions that limit investment in waste-management infrastructure.
The project considered these issues as connected rather than isolated. A change at one stage can influence product performance, public participation, sorting quality, processing economics and the risk of material escaping into the environment.
Collection design
Make disposal instructions and collection systems easier to understand and use correctly.
Recovery processes
Examine the technical and economic conditions needed for mechanical and chemical routes.
Market conditions
Understand how incentives and investment decisions affect the wider material system.
How the work was structured
Design across the whole system.
The research assembled multiple disciplines and considered interventions in the context of the organisations responsible for making, selling, collecting and managing materials.
Define the function
Begin with what packaging must protect, contain or deliver rather than assuming a preferred material.
Map dependencies
Trace how design decisions affect manufacturing, use, collection, sorting and treatment.
Develop interventions
Explore changes to products, services, processes and incentives that could prevent waste.
Test in context
Assess proposals with input from relevant sectors and account for practical constraints.
Designing out waste means connecting decisions made before production with what can genuinely happen after use.
Project network
Research, funding and sector input.
The archive records support from public research bodies and collaboration with organisations from manufacturing, retail, policy, local government, sustainability and waste management.
Funding context
The project was funded by UK Research and Innovation and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
The funding programme was managed by UK Research and Innovation and delivered through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Innovate UK, with strategic involvement from the Natural Environment Research Council.
Partners listed in the archive
These organisations were recorded as project partners:
Project questions
What the systems approach means.
What does “designing out” plastic waste mean?
It means preventing avoidable waste through decisions made before a product reaches users, while also ensuring collection and treatment systems can support the intended outcome.
Was the project only about packaging design?
No. Packaging was central, but the project also considered collection methods, recycling processes, market incentives and the connections between them.
Why consider the entire system?
A technically recyclable package may still become waste if it is difficult to identify, is not collected locally, cannot be sorted or lacks a viable processing market.
Which recovery routes were considered?
The project context included reuse, mechanical recycling, chemical recycling and appropriate composting pathways. Suitability depends on the product, material and available infrastructure.
Who contributed to the project context?
The archive describes multidisciplinary research alongside input from manufacturing, retail, policy, local government, sustainability and waste-management organisations.
Is every plastic package suitable for reuse or composting?
No. Product function, hygiene, durability, material properties, user behaviour and treatment infrastructure all influence whether a route is appropriate.
Continue exploring practical plastic-waste research.
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