SD Innovation > precycling history

1988 Precycling first used for consumer waste awareness. Ethical marketing executive Maureen O'Rourke coins the term 'precycle' for a public waste prevention campaign in Berkeley, California. The Berkeley precycling program encouraged residents to purchase products packaged in recyclable materials, avoid purchase of disposable products and products in multiple layers of packaging, and buy in bulk. Residents were also encouraged to reuse and repair products.

circular or linear economics?

front of pipe

precycling

sustainable development

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1990 Precycling outcomes surveyed in Boulder. "Other communities, such as Newark and Boulder, have initiated precycling campaigns modeled after Berkeley's program. Based on responses from 2,000 shoppers, Boulder's precycling campaign successfully increased consumer awareness about ways to reduce waste generation. Of the shoppers surveyed, 84 percent claimed they were familiar with the program, 54 percent could identify 'precycle' concepts, and 74 percent said the campaign helped them reduce waste."
Waste Prevention Lessions from 30 US Communities. US Environmental Protection Agency. 1994.Page 14. www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/recy-com/toc.pdf
 

1996 Precycling in an academic journal. ABSTRACT: Precycling, or purchasing wisely to reduce waste, is the EPA-preferred way to conserve resources and extend landfill life. A 3-month campaign of radio, television, and in-store advertising was effective at teaching the concept of precycling. After the campaign, telephone interviews indicated that 16% of the sample could correctly define the term, a 9 % increase over the first survey. The survey results indicate that at least 65,000 citizens of Salt Lake County had probably learned the concept from the ad campaign. Given that the term had not come into popular use at the time of the advertising, it is unlikely that individuals had learned the term from another source. Furthermore, there was a significant association between seeing the ads and correctly defining precycling.
Gillilan, S., Werner, C. M., Olson, L., & Adams, D. Teaching the concept of Precycling: A campaign and evaluation. Journal of Environmental Education, 28, 11-18. 1996.

2003 Precycling now suitable for all products and all people. SD Innovation shows that precycling is not only suitable as a public waste minimisation tool; it can be used throughout society to plan ways for every product to become new resources in future. All previous waste planning has struggled to implement the to the first principle of waste, the waste hierarchy prioritising prevention and recycling before disposal. This hierarchy can now be applied within large scale waste planning by use of front of pipe strategy and precycling.

2005 Precycling reinvents sustainable development and capitalism. Sustainable development has failed over 30 years to regulate capitalism. SD Innovation now proposes to correct the market rather than to restrict it. The new economic instrument 'precycling insurance' is designed to account for the risk of unsustainability within products, in effect redefining capitalism as a force for preventing global problems whilst generating lasting wealth. See working paper.

2007 Precycling Insurance published as a peer reviewed paper in a Journal of Cleaner Production special issue on zero emissions. See www.BlindSpot.org.uk