Using recycled plastic granules to make the city more livable, greener, more accessible and/or climate neutral

City of Ghent embraces circularity.

In the transition to a circular society, you can't avoid PLASTICS. And that is exactly how we want to make a difference with the INTERREG PlastiCity project. We are investigating how we can significantly increase the recycling rate of plastics.

Designing with recycled plastics

In order to increase the demand for recycled plastics, we want to demonstrate that you can also create beautiful, sustainable, meaningful and saleable products with recycled plastics. And we focus on concepts that can be used in an urban environment.

At the Design Fest Ghent, in April, we organized a first workshop and design talk on this subject. We closely looked into the rich input of the participants and formulated a number of specific application areas to work on:

• Shade makers
• Noise reduction in combination with green
• Capture/retention/conveyance/reuse of rainwater in the city and purification of grey water more specifically: Water pass-through squares, water collection on facades, via lampposts, pumped groundwater from yards,
• Regenerate/retain/develop green areas in the city with the added benefit of creating 'city lungs' and CO2 vacuums, promote forms of collective greenery and social cohesion, promote urban agriculture

Towards the workshop we will discuss these application areas with experts from the city to make them even more concrete. These city employees will also be present at the workshop to trigger you from their knowledge and as a user.

What are we doing this for?

We are aiming for a number of circular product concepts that we can present to Ghent companies and/or plastic producers. This way we want to challenge not only plastic producers but also companies that market plastic products to think outside the box and include circular plastics in their day-to-day business?

How do we appraoch this?

We aim to have a number of design tables with a professional designer and a city employee/customer enriched with the input of both teachers and students from design oriented schools. Throughout this, the experts who are present will walk around for questions, feedback, ... At the workshop we end with a first evaluation of the concepts.

How can we strengthen each other?

Afterwards, the project team will evaluate the product concepts together with a number of plastic experts, some from knowledge institutions. For the most promising of these, we will provide a follow-up process in which we will bring the designer into contact with companies that may be interested in the concept.

We are looking for both production companies and companies with market access. The idea is to develop a number of concrete business cases within PlastiCity and preferably also prototypes (at scale)

Practical

The PlastiCity Design Thinking workshop takes place on June 29 from 10h to 13h30, at a location in Ghent.

After the workshop, we will give you the opportunity to have a chat in an informal setting.

We expect professional designers to actively contribute to a realistic product concept.

• give us a short insight in your experience with designing with (recycled) plastics and/or circular design and a short motivation to participate.
• the selected designers will be reimbursed at € 300, including travel expenses and VAT. The compensation will be paid against invoice or cost note prepared by the designer.

Teachers and students of design related courses are also welcome.

If you have questions, please contact Els De Mol