As a designer working in sustainability and circular economy Sophie Thomas is full of guilt. She is continuously caught between wanting to create beautiful things that people want and knowing the huge impact involved in the process of extracting, processing, making and selling stuff - not to mention the impact when these creations become waste. But, where do we start when we consider how to design things better for the future? What role do designers have, and how can we break our current wasteful, linear systems? Sophie tackles these questions through creative curiosity, design thinking and by investigating current waste streams, all to demonstrate that waste is a design flaw. And it all starts at a fridge recycling facility… Sophie has been a campaigner and leader in sustainable and circular design for nearly 30 years. Her passion for garbology (exploring human behaviours by digging in the trash), and belief that waste is a design flaw started early and still drives her curiosity and she is often found peering into waste bins.

Her design studio, Thomas.Matthews was an early pioneer in creating exhibitions, packaging and signage using waste materials. She is the only designer in the UK to be honoured as a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Waste Management.

In 2012, Sophie set up The Great Recovery project which took over 1000 designers to waste sites to see where their products die, and to rethink design using circular principles. Since then, she has worked with industry to look at how everything - from oil rigs, sofas, shoes, and mobile phones - can be designed for reuse. She works with businesses to radically reconsider material use through design, research, and innovation.

In 2022, she co-founded the climate-tech venture studio, etsaW which supports and builds innovation in the transformation of waste streams into new materials and helps set up new businesses that exploit their use. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx