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Papers
61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Upcycling Systems Design, Developing a Methodology through Design
ClearDesign framework for circular and sustainable packaging design
Researchers developed a novel packaging design framework integrating circularity and sustainability (C&S) criteria using literature review, expert brainstorming, and field visits. The framework addresses conflicts between sustainability and functional requirements and provides practical iterative strategies for packaging designers.
Plastic Waste Upcycling: A Sustainable Solution for Waste Management, Product Development, and Circular Economy
This review examined plastic waste upcycling as a sustainable alternative to conventional recycling, covering methods that transform plastic waste into value-added products and support circular economy goals while addressing environmental pollution.
System innovation and life cycle thinking in packaging value chain: the circularity of plastics.
This paper examines the role of circular economy principles in reducing plastic packaging waste, noting that despite existing recycling systems, plastics remain pervasive environmental contaminants. The authors argue that redesigning packaging systems for recyclability and reducing over-packaging are essential steps to address microplastic pollution at its source.
Combining Flexible and Sustainable Design Principles for Evaluating Designs: Textile Recycling Application
Researchers developed a framework combining flexible and sustainable design principles to evaluate textile recycling technologies. The study addresses the growing environmental burden of textile waste in the U.S., where over 15 million tons are discarded annually with less than 15% recycled, contributing to microplastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed evaluation method aims to help identify recycling approaches that are both economically viable and environmentally responsible.
Circular Product Practices for a Post-Plastic Transition
This study examines how designers can support a post-plastic transition by identifying circular product practices, combining design theory with practical action frameworks to define the competencies and strategies needed for responsible polymeric material use within circular economy models.
Circularity in Practice: Review of Main Current Approaches and Strategic Propositions for an Efficient Circular Economy of Materials
This review proposes a structured framework for classifying circular economy strategies — including reuse, remanufacturing, recycling, and biological cycles — and evaluates their current adoption and barriers to scaling toward genuinely circular material flows.
Re-Use Aesthetics and the Architectural Roots of Ecological Crisis
This paper explores the architectural roots of ecological aesthetics and reuse culture, arguing that adaptive reuse of materials including plastic waste has historical precedent in architecture that can inform contemporary sustainable design. The author links material reuse practices to broader ecological thinking in design.
Recirculation: A New Concept to Drive Innovation in Sustainable Product Design for Bio-Based Products
This paper introduces a 'recirculation' framework for designing bio-based products that maximizes resource efficiency and minimizes waste throughout a product's life cycle. While bio-based materials offer a sustainable alternative to petroleum plastics, the authors argue that sustainable design principles must be built in from the start to maximize their environmental benefit.
Combining Eco-Design and LCA as Decision-Making Process to Prevent Plastics in Packaging Application
Researchers applied simultaneous eco-design and life cycle assessment (LCA) to help a small food packaging company redesign its frozen food packaging to reduce plastic use and microplastic dispersal into marine environments. The case study demonstrated that integrating circular economy principles and LCA from the design stage enabled more effective material substitution decisions than applying these tools sequentially.
Design Thinking as a remedy to Fast-Fashion ecological issues
This theoretical design study explores how design thinking methodologies could be applied to address the ecological problems caused by fast fashion, including textile microfiber pollution. It is primarily a conceptual design framework paper rather than an empirical research study.
Regenerative Product Design: a Literature Review in an Emerging Field
This literature review examines the emerging field of regenerative product design, exploring how materials and systems can be designed to repair, recreate, or revitalize their own resources at local, regional, and global scales. The authors analyze how regenerative principles differ from sustainability and circular economy frameworks and what they mean for material selection, user behavior, and product interaction.
Leveraging Insights from Unique Artifacts for Creating Sustainable Products
This paper examines how the design principles found in unique historical artifacts can inspire sustainable manufacturing approaches within a circular economy. Designing products for longevity, repairability, and end-of-life recyclability can reduce plastic waste and the microplastics generated from product disposal.
Research on Application of Environmental Protection Concept in Modern Product Design
This paper explores how principles of environmental sustainability are being integrated into modern product design, examining how green design concepts can reduce ecological impact while meeting consumer needs. The analysis calls for applying low-carbon, circular economy values throughout the product development process.
Bio-based plastics in a circular economy: A review of recovery pathways and implications for product design
Researchers reviewed how bio-based plastics — made from renewable plant sources — can be recovered and recycled at end-of-life, finding that the feasibility of eight different recovery methods depends heavily not just on plastic chemistry but on how products are designed, and offering guidance for designers to improve recyclability.
Minimizing the environmental impacts of plastic through eco-design
Researchers developed a sustainability metric for eco-designing plastic products with low environmental persistence by integrating the environmental degradation rate of plastics into established material selection frameworks. The approach allows designers to compare materials on both functional performance and environmental persistence using material property indices.
Integration with biotechnological approaches for upcycling waste plastics
This review examines the limitations of mechanical, chemical, and thermal plastic recycling approaches — including restricted reprocessing cycles, high energy costs, and toxic emissions — and evaluates biotechnological strategies such as enzymatic and microbial degradation as complementary routes for waste plastic upcycling. The authors argue that integrating biological and chemical processes offers the most promising pathway for effective upcycling while reducing carbon emissions and advancing circular economy goals.
Upcycling plastic waste through empirical implementation of large-scale 3D printing
This design research project explored large-scale 3D printing as a method for upcycling waste plastic into usable products, addressing the quality concerns that have limited plastic recycling adoption. While focused on waste reduction rather than microplastics specifically, reducing plastic waste helps prevent the breakdown of plastics into microplastics.
Eco-Design of Polymer Matrix Composite Parts: A Review
This review examines eco-design principles applied to polymer matrix composite parts, covering the environmental impacts of composites across their lifecycle from design and manufacturing through to recycling and end-of-life. The review emphasizes sustainable approaches including waste minimization, recyclability, and the use of bio-based or recycled materials.
Polymers Recycling: Upcycling Techniques. an Overview
This paper is not about microplastics in a research sense; it is an overview of polymer recycling and upcycling techniques, mentioning microplastic accumulation briefly as motivation but not investigating microplastics directly.
Novel robust upcycling approach for the manufacture of value-added polymers based on mixed (poly)urethane scraps
This study developed a novel process for recycling mixed polyurethane scraps into new value-added polymers. Upcycling thermoset plastics that are currently unrecyclable could prevent these materials from fragmenting into microplastics in the environment.
Research on the Whole Life Cycle of a Furniture Design and Development System Based on Sustainable Design Theory
Researchers applied the AHP-QFD-AD method to develop a sustainable furniture design evaluation framework, integrating life cycle thinking, market research, and user needs analysis. The approach aims to extend furniture product lifespans and reduce environmental impacts throughout the design, manufacturing, and end-of-life stages.
Reconciling Waste Management and Ecological Economics
Researchers examined how the concept of the "circular economy" — designing products and systems to minimize waste — fits within ecological economics, which emphasizes physical limits like energy and material flows. The chapter argues that effective waste management policies, such as landfill taxes, extended producer responsibility, and deposit-refund schemes, must align environmental costs with economic incentives to achieve meaningful sustainability gains.
Plastic Waste to Value-Added Products via Recycling and Upcycling
This review examined pathways for converting plastic waste into value-added products through recycling and upcycling, framing solutions within a circular economy approach. The paper surveyed mechanical, chemical, and biological conversion technologies and assessed their potential to reduce plastic waste while generating economically useful outputs.
Method to incorporate green chemistry principles in early-stage product design for sustainability: case studies with personal care products
Researchers developed a method integrating green chemistry principles with ecological risk assessment and life cycle assessment to guide sustainable early-stage product design for down-the-drain consumer products such as personal care items, demonstrating the approach through case studies.