All Just Rubbish? (2011)

All Just Rubbish? - Summer School 2011

Summer School on the subjects of waste, green product design and material cycles

26 June - 15 July 2011. Location: ETH Zurich

Documentary

What is the outcome if 30 students spend three weeks with leading experts to discuss burning questions regarding waste management, green product design and material life cycles? Find out and watch the 15 minutes long documentary >>.

Documentation

You can download the following documentation material via the links provided below:

• Flyer >>
• Reader "All Just Rubbish?" >>
• Summary of lectures and workshops >>
• Final report case study "Food Packaging" >>
• Final report case study "Washing Machine" >>
• Final report case study "Wood Furniture" >>

• ETH Globe article >>

A global challenge

Many environmental problems are beyond our daily control. But not how we deal with rubbish. In spite of the central position of waste in our daily lives, we produce an irresponsibly large and unnecessary amount of it – with global consequences:

• In the middle of the Pacific, the huge "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" is growing ever bigger and according to estimates now encompasses an area of up to four times the size of Germany
• In the countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa, waste production is having a direct impact on the world's climate. Waste dumps in these areas form the biggest sources of greenhouse gases and are responsible for around 40% of annual methane emissions
• Also in need of a radical rethink is our mountain of electronic scrap. With two thirds of the world's population owning a mobile phone and 1.2 billion new phones being sold every year, we are wasting tonnes of valuable raw materials that are later simply dumped

One of the biggest challenges in sustainability development therefore is to close the material cycle and make waste redundant.

 

Ideas that get people moving

With the 2011 Summer School, ETH Zurich aimed to demonstrate new ways of dealing responsibly with the waste problem. Over a period of three weeks, ETH Zurich created an environment in which interdisciplinary and international teams worked together with industry partners to find solutions for specific case studies.

Looking at global waste flows and their consequences and risks, students were shown tools with which the entire life cycle of a product can be analysed and creative alternatives developed. They used this expertise to solve specific problems and came up with eco-friendly product alternatives.

Key learning aims were:

• Basics of green product design
• Eco-balances
• Life and material cycle analyses
• Concepts such as cradle-to-cradle, recycling and upcycling
• Creative technologies
• Innovation management

 

Who was invited to apply?

The ETH Summer School programme was designed for 30 students from a wide range of differing disciplines and nationalities.

Applicants were selected less on the basis of their academic performance and more on their proof of motivation, creativity and extra-curricular experience.

 

A strong team

Successful projects are the result of dedicated people and teams. The ETH Summer School programme was run by ETH Sustainability, the coordinating hub for sustainability activities at ETH Zurich, and the Departments of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (D-BAUG), Management, Technology and Economics (D-MTEC) and Architecture (D-ARCH).

The Club of Rome acted as a project partner involved in the organisation and running of the programme.

Inputs and assistance in compiling the case studies were given by selected companies and institutes who are leaders in the field of sustainable development.