Plastic, the Villain of the Century
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Circular&Co’s UK cups are produced locally in Cornwall.
Helping to create a more circular economy UK company Circular&Co is showing how business success can be perfectly compatible with creating a more sustainable society.
Millions flock to Cornwall in southwest England every year, drawn by pristine beaches and rugged landscape. The county’s deep association with nature makes it an ideal location for a small UK company that is working to create a more sustainable future. Circular&Co, based in the scenic resort town of Perranporth, has as its mission “to inspire and educate everyone about circular design and why we must all welcome circularity into our everyday lives”. The company uses waste materials to create reusable cups and bottles, plus plant pots, house signs, tide clocks and ba-
rometers, as well as other homeware and garden products. On top of selling these consumer products from its website, the company works with businesses to provide branded goods and returnable cup schemes. Each Circular&Co cup is designed to last up to ten years and can be recycled at the end of its life. Circular&Co is the brainchild of Dan Dicker, a product design expert who had previously worked at Dyson, the innovative consumer goods manufacturer best known for upending the vacuum cleaner market in the 1990s. Dicker founded a business called AShortWalk in a garden shed in 2003, after
BY JASON DEIGN
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PHOTOS: CIRCULAR&CO
becoming disillusioned with the amount of waste created by manufacturing and consumption at the time. AShortWalk rebranded as Circular&Co in 2020. ENAMOURED OF CIRCULAR DESIGN “We all genuinely believe that circular design solves three of the huge issues we are facing,” says Ashleigh Smith, Circular&Co’s product designer. “It solves over-consumption; it solves carbon emissions, and it solves pollution and waste.” There is now growing recognition that embracing circular design criteria can help improve financial performance, says April 2022
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Issue 02
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