Spotted: The global subscription e-commerce market size is growing at a rate of more than 64 per cent each year, with analysts predicting a value of more than $904 billion by 2026 (around €850 billion). With consumers able to access many products so quickly and directly, adding circularity to the process could help reduce substantial volumes of waste and pollution. With many people keen on updating their devices as regularly as possible, e-waste is a mountainous problem affecting almost every region of the world.
Australian and Singaporean-based Circular is a subscription service designed to completely change how people consume technology. The company offers the latest devices at affordable monthly prices, and when someone wants to upgrade, the phone, laptop, or other device doesn’t just languish in a desk drawer. Instead, Circular refurbishes the device and offers it for lease to someone wanting a newer device that isn’t necessarily the latest model. When a device reaches the end of its useful lifecycle, Circular recycles it via sustainable, traceable processes.
Customers choose the length of their subscription and after being approved by Circular, receive their chosen device. Subscriptions are available for individuals and businesses, and Circular covers 90 per cent of all damage repair costs. After paying an initial launch fee for the chosen subscription length, customers pay a monthly cost that ranges from around A$44 to A$180 (from around €27 to €109), depending on the type and power of device chosen.
Despite the ubiquity of subscription services, innovators continue to find new ways to update the idea for new products and processes. In Springwise’s database, examples include a subscribe and recycle model for kids’ bikes and toys and a subscription app that provides access to electric vehicle charging availability.
A group of design graduates from London’s Royal College of Art have come up with a way to make RFID tags entirely from paper, with no metal or silicon components in a bid to cut down on waste from single-use electronics.
Under their start-up Pulpatronics, the team has devised a chipless, paper-only version of a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag – a type of electronic tracker that is attached to products and is most commonly found in clothing stores.
These types of tags have succeeded barcodes in many big retailers, where they allow self-checkout machines to “magically” identify items without scanning anything, while also facilitating inventory management and theft prevention.
Pulpatronics’ paper RFID tag contains no metal or silicon
The devices rely on a circuit with a microchip and antenna, usually embedded into a sticker adhered to the paper swing tag. Due to the mix of paper, metal and silicon, they are unrecyclable and tend to end up in landfills.
By contrast, Pulpatronics’ alternative RFID design requires no other material than paper. The company simply uses a laser to mark a circuit onto its surface, with the laser settings tuned so as not to cut or burn the paper but to change its chemical composition to make it conductive.
There are fewer steps involved in making Pulpatronics tags than standard RFIDs
This circuit is carbon-based and the tag can be recycled with household waste as easily as a piece of paper marked with a pencil scrawl.
“This approach streamlines the manufacturing process, eliminates the need for metal and silicon components and significantly reduces the environmental footprint of RFID tag production as a result,” Pulpatronics said.
Pulpatronics estimates its tags will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 70 per cent compared to standard RFID tags while halving the associated price for businesses.
The design is now being prototyped and tested
The company’s three co-founders came up with the idea for the RFID tags while working on a group project along with a fourth student as part of their Innovation Design Engineering masters course, jointly run by Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art.
Chloe So, Barna Soma Biro and Rui Ma have different backgrounds, ranging from engineering to biological sciences to fashion design, and wanted to consolidate their skills to come up with a design that would have a positive impact on the environment.
“Our approach was slightly different to the rest of the teams in our course,” said Biro, who is Pulpatronics’ tech lead. “We never really started with a problem and then tried to identify a solution to it as you would normally do in a conventional design process.”
“Rather, we investigated various types of interesting technologies that we thought were cutting-edge from a scientific perspective and then brainstormed around what we could create out of them by trying to stay aligned to our values of reducing waste and making technology more accessible,” he continued.
In addition to the paper circuitry, Pulpatronics also applied another of these experimental technologies to dispose of the RFID’s microchip, which is responsible for storing data about the item that is then communicated to the reader via an antenna.
Instead, the “chipless” Pulpatronics tag uses the geometric pattern of the circuit itself to convey the information. In the company’s concept designs, for instance, it’s a labyrinthine pattern of concentric circles.
“This mechanism is similar to barcodes and QR codes in the sense that the information is encoded geometrically, but it doesn’t need to be scanned visually,” said Biro. “It’s basically storing the information in the antenna.”
The tags can easily recycled together with household waste
So far, Pulpatronics paper RFID tag has passed its first round of testing, where the technology was found to match the performance of a copper-based control RFID tag.
The company – which is longlisted for this year’s Dezeen Award in the sustainable design category – will now stress test the product, looking at its shelf life, durability and whether it is affected by environmental factors.
Pulpatronics is targeting the retail industry first, particularly smaller companies that have not yet made the switch to RFID due to cost. And a preliminary trial with a retail partner in the redeveloped Battersea Power Station is already on the horizon.
Pulpatronics is also pushing for the introduction of a new symbol to designate recyclable RFID tags and raise awareness about the environmental issue of e-waste generated from hidden electronics.
Other single-use electronics in circulation today include disposable vapes and digital pregnancy tests, which show the results of a paper strip test on a tiny screen.
Last year, Australian company Hoopsy launched a paper-based pregnancy test to tackle both the electronic and plastic waste created by these devices.
Spotted: Researchers predict that the refurbished electronics market will reach more than $94 billion (around €88 billion) by 2030. Such growth suggests an increase in the accessibility of devices based on cost as well as more robust reuse and recycling systems.
Contributing to the big strides being taken in keeping used electronic devices out of landfill is technology recycling company GreenDice. The Estonian company partners with a range of businesses to place their used equipment with members of communities in need of connectivity.
With a starting monthly fee of €5.9 per month, individuals can choose a refurbished laptop, desktop, or both. Every plan comes with GreenDice’s guaranteed IT support and full transparency on how old the device is and who owned it. Borrowers can feel confident that they are getting quality devices as all equipment comes from globally known manufacturers and businesses upgrading their tech.
If a device is no longer needed, borrowers can return it at any time, with no costs involved in cancelling. And when a computer reaches the end of its usable life, GreenDice takes it back and oversees the responsible, sustainable recycling of its parts.
For businesses, GreenDice offers a way to reduce environmental impact without having to resort to offsetting emissions. The company’s programme also makes it possible for organisations to complete reliable full life cycle assessments of their device inventory.
Affordability is a cornerstone of the company’s programme, and the team plans to decrease monthly fees in proportion to a growth in the number of commercial partners.
A non-toxic, low-energy material recovery process, along with a used electronics marketplace are two other methods of increasing circularity that are highlighted by innovators in Springwise’s database.
Spotted: The global refurbished and used mobile phone market is expected to grow from more than $50 billion (around €47 billion) in 2022 to around $172 billion (around €161 billion) by 2033. And advocates of electronics recycling see an encouraging uptick in consumer demand for refurbished devices.
As a means of making the most of all the valuable materials found in devices that range from smartwatches and tablets to video game consoles and audio products, digital resale platform Valyuu connects buyers and sellers with its reliable second-hand electronics marketplace. Valyuu provides buyers with a reliable evaluation of products that includes photos and access to full test reports.
Sellers have multiple options on the platform. They can sell their device for an immediate payment through Fast Pay or wait a bit longer to receive a Best Value payment. Valyuu covers all shipping costs, and if a seller chooses to donate their device to the company, Valyuu donates the value of the sale to a social inclusion and education charity.
With data sensitivity a major barrier to large scale electronics recycling, Valyuu provides sellers with detailed instructions on how to wipe clean their devices. And once the company receives an item, its team of IT experts re-wipes the product for further data protection.
If a device needs something fixed, the Valyuu team of refurbishers makes it usable again. And if a device is no longer usable, Valyuu’s team of recyclers takes it apart for sustainable reuse and recycling.
The Netherlands-based company operates throughout the Benelux countries of The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany and plans to continue expanding the availability of its services internationally. Having recently closed a round of seed funding that raised €2.4 million, the company plans to further expand the range of products available on its platform, further its research and development (R&D), and make its service available in more locations.
As well as electronics, refurbishment is being used by a multitude of industries as a means of reducing waste while expanding the lifespan of goods. In Springwise’s library, innovations include a subscription service for office furniture and virtual trunk shows of used luxury items.
University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers have invented a biofilm that sticks to the skin like a Band-Aid to harnesses sweat for electricity that could power wearable devices.
The biofilm is made using a bacteria that converts energy from evaporation into electricity, making use of the moisture on a person’s skin as it turns into vapour.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers behind the innovation say it takes advantage of the “huge, untapped source of energy” that is evaporation.
“This is a very exciting technology,” said team member and electrical and computer engineering graduate student Xiaomeng Liu. “It is real green energy, and unlike other so-called ‘green-energy’ sources, its production is totally green.”
The biofilm uses sweat to power small electronic devices such as an LCD screen
According to the researchers, this is because the film is produced naturally by the microbes, with no need for unsustainably produced materials and no toxic waste byproducts.
“We sustainably grow the cells in a biofilm, and then use that agglomeration of cells. This cuts the energy inputs, makes everything simpler and widens the potential applications.”
The bacteria used is called geobacter sulfurreducens and is known for its ability to produce electricity, having previously been used to make microbial batteries.
Unlike with those batteries, however, the biofilm bacteria do not need to be periodically fed or cared for, because they are already dead — one of the team’s discoveries is that the microbes do not need to be alive to produce electricity.
To obtain the biofilm, the researchers harvest the geobacter, which grows in colonies that look like thin sheets of under 0.1 millimetres thickness, with the microbes all connected to each other by “natural nanowires”.
The biofilm is sandwiched between electrodes and sticky biopolymer before being ready for use
The researchers etch small circuits into these mats and then sandwich them between two mesh electrodes before sealing the package in a soft, sticky biopolymer to enable it to grip to the skin.
They describe the act of applying the film to your body as akin to plugging in a battery, and say it could revolutionise wearable electronics by solving the problem of where to put the power supply.
“Batteries run down and have to be changed or charged,” said electrical and computer engineering professor Jun Yao. “They are also bulky, heavy and uncomfortable.”
In its current form the biofilm produces enough energy to power small devices such as medical sensors or personal electronics, but the team also plans to explore larger films that can power even more sophisticated devices.
At an even larger scale, they hope the biofilm could be used to make more use of the untapped energy from evaporation, pointing to research that shows around 50 per cent of the solar energy reaching earth is spent on the process.
An example of a microbial battery appears in the work of Dutch designer Teresa van Dongen, who has used the geobacters to produce the Electric Life lighting and the Mud Well installation.
She embraces the fact that the bacteria need to be fed, arguing that this ritual would create “a closer relationship between the (living) object and its owner”.
