Design for Recycling®

The ISRI Design for Recycling®

Begun more than 20 years ago, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, (ISRI) Design for Recycling® initiative encourages manufacturers to think about the ultimate destiny of their products during the design-stage of a product’s development.

The Design for Recycling® Award is ISRI’s highest award that is given to the most outstanding contribution to products designed with recycling in mind.

In order to be considered for the Design for Recycling® Award, candidates must demonstrate progress towards ensuring their products can be recycled safely and economically, using existing recycling technologies and methods; eliminating or significantly reducing materials that may impede recycling, including hazardous or toxic materials; increasing the yield of a product’s recyclable materials; and the increased use of recycled materials in manufacturing.

In recognition of such proactive steps by manufacturers, ISRI annually awards the “Design for Recycling® Award” to companies that have actively incorporated Design for Recycling® principles into their products and manufacturing processes.

For more information on Design for Recylcing®, read the DfR Press Release.

ISRI’s Position on Design for Recycling®

 The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries advocates Design for Recycling™—a national policy to promote the design and manufacture of goods that, at the end of their useful life, can be recycled safely and efficiently.

ISRI believes that the following principles should be applied.

1. Making Consumer Products Recyclable
Manufacturers must ensure that consumer products can be safely and economically recycled, using existing recycling technology and methods, when removed from service. Recyclers of consumer products should not have to incur unnecessary costs due to the use
of hazardous constituents in the products. Unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary, consumer products should be recyclable without creating risks to human health or the environment from hazardous constituents.

2. Reducing Environmental Risks From Consumer Products
All newly manufactured durable consumer products should have demonstrated recyclability.  In most cases, if a product is found to present environmental risks that make it uneconomical to recycle the product, it should not be sold without design or manufacturing changes that will remove those risks.

3. Controlling Special Environmental Problems
Some products many not be capable of being redesigned so as to eliminate risk to the recycler.  For example, for some applications, there may be no feasible substitute for a hazardous constituent in the product. In these cases, there should be new cooperative arrangements between manufacturers and recyclers to ensure recycling, and recyclers should be relieved of the resulting risks of environmental liability.

4. Assistance to Manufacturers of Consumer Durables
Manufacturers who are required to alter the design or manufacture of their products should receive transitional assistance, when appropriate. Small business, in particular, should be afforded economic and technical assistance in ensuring their products’ safe recyclability.  Manufacturers should not be asked to bear all the costs of Design for Recycling®, any more than recyclers should be required to continue to bear all the environmental risks of recycling in that absence of appropriate product design. Design for Recycling® will benefit all of society, and it is therefore fitting that society assist manufacturers in its implementation.

  Design for Recycling® Award Criteria