RISD's Loop Lab transforms its own waste streams into raw materials

The Rhode Island School of Design has launched Loop Lab, a pilot initiative that transforms the school's own waste into raw materials for students to reuse and reimagine.

Still in its early stages, the pilot currently focuses on paper waste, which was chosen for its ubiquity and potential.

"It's the lowest hanging fruit, if you will," said Jennifer Bissonnette, director of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab, who leads the project.

"Every single department is producing it, and it's a tried-and-true material with a lot of history and potential for innovation."

So far, the team has collected just over a quarter ton of paper waste, mostly gathered during the summer months when campus studios remain open for graduate students and continuing education programs.

The materials come from across departments: blotter paper and cardstock from Printmaking, cotton muslin and denim from Apparel Design, drawing pads and matte boards from Experimental and Foundation Studies, and photo and Bristol paper from Graphic Design.

What students end up doing with the material is up to them. Some students are already integrating the repurposed materials into model-making and sculptural work, while others are experimenting with their material properties to create something entirely new.

Now that classes have resumed for the fall semester, the team expects the amount of waste collected to increase significantly.

Funded by a $100,000 grant from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, Loop Lab is run by the Nature Lab, which sits outside RISD's departmental structure and serves as a cross-disciplinary research centre.

Its position allows it to collaborate with every department on campus – a crucial factor for a project that depends on shared responsibility.

If the pilot succeeds, the model could extend to textiles, plastics, and even organic waste. Dining hall ingredients, for instance, could be transformed into natural dyes or inks.

"This is a pilot, so we can't solve the entire waste problem on campus, but we can engage students in thinking about circularity," said Bissonnette.

To make the system work, the team built a new infrastructure from scratch. Student research assistants now collect, sort, and weigh discarded materials before shredding, soaking, and pressing them into pulp slurry or dense paper blocks, known as briquettes.

"The students want to be part of the labor," said Haley Mackeil, Loop Lab's project coordinator. "This circularity project is a great way to get them to think about what the second life of a material might look like."

The reprocessed materials are distributed free of charge through Second Life Exchange – RISD's student-run material library.

The aim is to close the loop, ensuring that what's discarded in one studio can become the starting point for another.

If successful, RISD hopes to share the Loop Lab blueprint with other art and design schools.

"I don't think anybody wants to hoard solutions," Bissonnette added. "If we can provide a blueprint, other schools can take it."

Other recycling initiatives include a hub in Boston by designer Raymond Lapiejko, which received a second-place award in Dezeen and Bentley's Radical Renewal Competition.

Elsewhere, on Governors Island in New York, designer and educator Barent Roth has been experimenting with micro factories for the transformation of household waste into consumer items.

The photography is courtesy of RISD.

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