The Waste Age exhibition, which opens today at London's Design Museum, explores how design has contributed to the rise of throwaway culture and how the industry can help to create an alternative circular economy that doesn't exploit the planet.
Across three sections and more than 300 objects, it takes stock of the global waste crisis as well as presenting a range of possible solutions developed by product, fashion and building designers using reclaimed and natural materials.
The exhibition's core thesis is that, much like humanity had the stone age and the steam age, we not live in a waste age defined by convenience and single-use, disposable products. The exhibition looks at reducing the use of plastic (above) and recycling it into products such as the S-1500 chair (top image)
"Waste is something that we tend to think of as on the periphery and that's where we prefer it, out of sight and out of mind," said the Design Museum's chief curator Justin McGuirk.
"But what if waste isn't peripheral" What if it's absolutely central to the culture that we've created""
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