Neo-classical, bio-based, ex-novo. All the materials available to design today are recyclable. The circular economy according to Material ConneXion Italia, as told by Emilio Genovesi, head of the authors of the book “Neomateriali nell'economia circolare”.
Material ConneXion is the largest materials database in existence. It was created in the United States by George Beylerian, a visionary figure in the world of international design, in 1997. Italy was the first non-American licence. The president is Rodrigo Rodriquez and the chief executive is Emilio Genovesi.
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We met Emilio Genovesi, chief executive of Material ConneXion Italia since 2009, alongside executive director Anna Pellizzari, authors of the book Neomateriali nell'economia circolare (published by Edizioni Ambiente), on the occasion of their participation in the exhibition 999 domande sull'abitare contemporaneo at the Triennale di Milano. From materials in traditional recycling supply chains, such as wood, aluminium, plastic, glass, to materials of biological origin and experimental ones, these are the categories at the heart of their research work.
In the introduction to the book Neomateriali dell'economia circolare you write that the circular economy proposes moving beyond the linear model of "produce, consume, discard" through a model that aims to reintroduce the maximum possible quantity of resources into the production cycle.
It is a model that has already entered our domestic lives through practices such as separate waste collection, which are changing our habits and our perception of "used" materials — no longer waste, but a precious resource. The neomaterials at the heart of the circular economy have been divided into three macro-categories: neo-classical, bio-based — materials of biological origin — and ex-novo, experimental materials.
What are neo-classical materials?
Neo-classical materials — explains Anna Pellizzari — are materials that come from established recycling supply chains, now at the basis of various production processes that draw on so-called "urban mines" as a source of supply: in the home, they are those from our separate waste collection — glass, metal, paper, plastic. Representing this category of materials is, for example, a Danish-made carpet produced from pre- and post-consumer recycled materials.
The softer part of the carpet is made from Econyl yarns, a pre-consumer regenerated nylon sourced from industrial waste, while the base felt is made from pressed yarn derived from PET. The post-consumer recycling process takes place after the separate waste collection phase, when plastic is taken to sorting facilities and divided into homogeneous streams — such as PET bottles, HDPE containers and polyethylene film — which can be used to feed a mechanical or chemical recycling process.
Recycled PET can be used to produce new non-food containers, stuffing fibres, jumpers, fleeces, carpets, car interiors, film and strapping.
What, on the other hand, are bio-based materials?
These are innovative materials of biological origin, based on the natural development cycles within the plant and animal kingdoms, as well as the world of micro-organisms, and which today are capable of reclaiming fields of application that for decades were the domain of materials of fossil origin.
A material representing the bio-based group is a thermoplastic starch derived from maize starch or other types of plant origin, used to make cutlery or accessories for single-use food consumption.
These are plastics of plant origin capable of degrading rapidly under specific conditions, and therefore ideal for the production of single-use products — short-lived items that can be disposed of in the organic waste fraction. It is a circular pathway suited to those waste materials that come into contact with food during consumption and which are therefore often contaminated by residues that are difficult to remove and that could potentially compromise recycling.
Biopolymers can be derived from maize starch, sugars, oil seeds, algae and woody stems, but also from plant-origin waste and agricultural residues.
Finally, let's talk about ex-novo materials
These are materials that come from waste considered "end-of-life", placed at the end of production and disposal chains, or outside established recycling supply chains. They are experimental materials, such as a panel containing spent coffee grounds and wood shavings bound together by a resin, for example. It is a material used to make tops and doors in the furniture sector.
Coffee is, after oil, the second most traded commodity in the world. In Italy alone, annual per-capita consumption is approximately 6 kg and generates over 360,000 tonnes of coffee grounds — a potentially recoverable raw material that instead ends up as waste.
But how can the grounds be reused, beyond their use as a natural fertiliser?
Applied research into the use of this particular type of waste has led to the creation of innovative and sustainable materials with a wide range of possible applications: solid surfaces, tiles, mosaics, objects, through to sanitising and thermoregulating additives used in the textile sector, for both clothing and furnishings.
How can the specialist message of the circular economy be brought to a general audience?
We chose the circular economy as our focus — continues Material ConneXion chief executive Emilio Genovesi — precisely because it seems to us the strongest theme that can today connect people's everyday discussions to a more specialist aspect of the issue, which is what we deal with. Everyone needs to be made to reflect on this topic. What is increasingly difficult today is talking about materials in the circular economy — which are of the utmost importance — without people becoming frightened at the thought of a future of poverty and pauperism, of a reduction in the things we have and the beauty we have in our environment. The circular economy is a theme that has always been present in design, linked to that of reuse and of emotional attachment in our relationship with objects. In the past, reuse came before recycling and was part of everyone's daily life.
Then came the recycling of classical materials, and on this subject we have grown fairly accustomed: the idea that wood and aluminium can be recycled has entered our mindset, yet we pay far less attention to the fact that materials can be reused by moving from one sector to another — for example, that textiles can be made from mineral water bottles, as now happens on a daily basis, or that a great many materials we perceive as artificial actually come from nature. We can now say that there are no materials that cannot be recycled. It is simply a matter of technology and investment. This allows us to think about a future from the perspective of circularity. We must aim to waste as little as possible, and this will not necessarily mean impacting our lives with greater poverty or ugliness. We could enjoy our small comforts, choose the things we like, but with materials that have a continuous life — one that repeats and regenerates itself.
Many of the materials in the Material ConneXion database, which is accessible to members, are futuristic and perhaps not immediately available or usable. But above all for university students, these materials open up a very broad world of research projects and experimental innovation, and this is a very large audience of not-yet-professionals who are very fond of us.