Waste mitigation strategies can reduce or eliminate the volume of material disposed to landfill.

The abundance of resources and raw materials in the industrial age led to the development of a throwaway society, and as resources run out, the many facets of sustainability become a more important focus for designers. The result of the throwaway society is large amounts of materials found in landfill, which can be considered as a new source to mine resources from.

• Re-use, Recycle, Repair, Recondition, Re-engineer, Pollution/waste

• Methodologies for waste reduction and designing out waste

• Dematerialization

• Product recovery strategies at end of life/disposal

• Circular economy with the use of waste as a resource within a closed-loop system

• Use and recovery of standard parts at the end of product life

• Recovery of raw materials

• Reduction of total material and energy throughput of a product or service, and the limitation of its environmental impact through: reduction of raw materials at the production stage; energy and material inputs at the user stage; waste at the disposal stage

• How dematerialization can improve product efficiency by saving, reusing or recycling materials and components

• The impacts of dematerialization on each stage of the product life cycle including: material extraction; eco-design; cleaner production; environmentally conscious consumption patterns; recycling of waste

• Potential results of successful dematerialization

As a designer you need to understand the the exploration of possible solutions to eliminate waste in our society has given rise to ideas developed as part of the circular economy. By redesigning products and processes, the waste from one product can become the raw material of another.