Measuring circular economy impact: findings from the Makerspace Adelaide workshop
A workshop run by SA Makers, Green Industries SA and Rawtec. Held 22 September 2020, reported 9 November 2020.
Summary published
A makerspace is a community workshop that gives people cheap access to tools and equipment. Its values are make rather than buy, repair and reuse rather than throw away, and share what you know.
The waste that never happens is the whole point, and it is also the hardest thing to count. Makerspace Adelaide wanted a way to measure it.
So a room of manufacturers, retailers, hackers, recyclers, repairers, waste educators, economists, materials specialists and academics took eight products apart to work out what the data would even look like.
Products pulled apart
Were repairable
Contained plastic
Named a country of manufacture
What taking things apart revealed
Disassembly is faster than people assume
Plastic toys, a timber outdoor table, a timber cube bookshelf and a jacket all came apart in under ten minutes. A baby seat, a mobile phone and a laptop took ten to thirty. Only a suitcase took longer than half an hour. Most needed no more than common household tools. The workshop’s conclusion was that the barrier is knowledge and confidence rather than difficulty.
Repair fails on economics, not physics
The barriers listed were voided warranties, repair costing more than replacement, awkward disassembly, missing skills and not enough spare time. The enablers were right to repair legislation, product stewardship schemes, design standards that make repair easy, and makerspaces and repair cafes themselves.
Recycling fails on convenience
Most of the eight products were recyclable. The main barrier was having to dismantle the product first, followed by not knowing what goes where and having no collection point within reach.
Labelling tells you almost nothing
Only half the products stated where they were made. None carried information about environmental footprint or labour conditions. Most were manufactured in China. Plastic showed up in seven of the eight.
Redesign ideas from the room
Interlocking parts instead of screws and glue, standardised part dimensions, building from a single material, manufacturing locally, leasing the product instead of selling it, and producer take-back schemes.
The metrics the workshop settled on
Number of products redesigned for circularity, number of products repaired at the makerspace, and number of workshop attendees.
Financial savings from repairing something rather than replacing it.
Number of tools shared, and tool utilisation measured in hours or as a percentage.
Share of discarded materials diverted from landfill by weight, and lifecycle savings in carbon emissions and water.
How to start collecting it
The report set out a sequence a makerspace can work through without specialist software.
Set up data collection sheets recording item numbers and weights, financial savings, volunteer hours and tool usage hours.
Record the weight of materials sent for recycling.
A central database with an embedded calculator for water, energy and carbon savings.
A quarterly circularity report card, displayed in the makerspace and shared on social media.
The framework was published as a draft and open source, with an explicit invitation to contribute. Alongside it the workshop identified changes no single makerspace can make on its own: right to repair legislation, product stewardship schemes and design standards for repairability.
The full report includes the workstation assessments for each of the eight products and the draft measurement framework.
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