177 Dan Dicker: moving the dial on reusable cup systems

Dan Dicker is the founder and CEO of Circular&Co, a Cornwall-based Circular Design brand on a mission to eliminate single-use waste. With a background in product design and innovation, Dan has spent over 20 years championing circular economy principles, designing products and systems that keep materials in use for longer. Alongside consumer products, he leads Circular&Co’s work on reuse and returnable cup systems, partnering with venues, events and organisations to drive real-world change and deliver genuine environmental impact. Dan explains how Circular&Co’s design skills are creating reuse and returnable cup systems, which are breaking the mould by not requiring an app, or a deposit, and are achieving extremely high levels of reuse by being super-convenient for the cup users, for cafes and for the local community. We hear how the systems work across a range of use scenarios, and how Circular&Co are using rich data sets to design efficient and effective systems for logistics and cleaning, and to help potential clients make a compelling business case.

Katie Allen, a regenerative farmer, maker and educator, who is creating healthy textiles, plant dyes and leathers and helping fashion students and others discover what soil health means for us, our food and our clothing. Katie Allen farms organically at Great Cotmarsh, in the UK. The farm produces lamb and beef in a 100% pastoral system and is implementing projects to improve soil health, increase biodiversity and embrace agroforestry. Under the brand ‘Katie Cotmarsh’, she creates award-winning knitwear using the fleeces from the flock and cultivates colour by growing plant dyes. Katie has developed a beautiful classroom space on the farm, to connect the future generation of designers with the story behind soil and give them a new perspective of what true circularity looks like, particularly in the face of an ever shifting climate and demand for new cradle-to-cradle models for fashion design. Katie tells us how she was first inspired by the Fibershed movement, and what it means to create a local, regenerative clothing supply-chain.

Stephen Fitzpatrick is Director of the Digital Factory at the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland, based at the University of Strathclyde, and Director of the Remake Value Retention Centre, a new £10m initiative commissioned by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). A key focus of Stephen’s work is developing solutions that enable a circular economy, particularly in high-value, high-integrity sectors. ‘High-integrity sectors’ are industries that require strict adherence to safety and reliability standards, often because the potential consequences of failure are huge – we can think about aerospace, automotive, nuclear power, wind, and other industries where ensuring safety, performance and up-time is critical. Stephen believes that combining digital technologies with remanufacturing is crucial, both to maximise the life of existing products, and to support designing and manufacturing new products in a way that optimises circular opportunities and value. Stephen leads a multidisciplinary team of 75 engineers and scientists, specialising in Digital Manufacturing, Design Engineering, Additive and Repair Manufacturing, Robotics and Metrology Systems.

We learn about driving change towards an effective, efficient and fair reuse economy, with Sydney Harris and Jennifer Carrigan of Upstream, a nonprofit that works to support sustainable, equitable reuse systems across North America. Upstream works to normalise reuse, to support the expansion of the reuse sector, and to help create supportive policy measures. It was founded over 20 years ago, and is seen as an early visionary, realising that reuse is better from an economic perspective as well as better for people and planet. Upstream works across industry sectors in the US and Canada.

Giulio Bonazzi is the visionary leader of Aquafil, a global pioneer in circular materials including Econyl Regenerated Nylon. Giulio has been transforming Aquafil from a conventional manufacturer into a pioneer of circular design, and he tells us about the process of creating premium-quality polyamide from a wide range of nylon waste streams, including fishing nets, old carpets, and fabric scraps.

To close out 2025, I’d like to revisit a critical aspect that’s being ignored - the economy itself. Ken Webster is a leading thinker in the circular economy field, and one of his many roles is with Earth4All, where he has been exploring the benefits of a Universal Basic Dividend. Ken and Catherine discussed this, and more aspects of circularity at an economic level back in 2023, and it’s highly relevant today, as the challenges we face loom larger.

This is the 2nd part of my conversation with Tom Llewellyn of Shareable, an organization that collaborates with others to imagine, resource, network, and scale cooperative projects. • We hear about Shareable's How-To Guides, which cover a vast range of topics from how to reduce food waste to starting mutual aid funds, and Tom explains how sharing initiatives are starting to be included in city and local government policies. • And Tom offers his top tips for how we can get started with sharing and other initiatives, to improve our resilience and build stronger communities. If you didn’t catch the first episode, head back to that if you’d like to hear why Shareable has pivoted from storytelling to focus on supporting groups to replicate successful sharing solutions, what Tom sees as the key challenges around sharing, and the importance of storytelling – including the misleading narratives used by most of the media, and how these undermine our resilience.

We discuss the importance of sharing and its many benefits with Tom Llewellyn, the Executive Director of Shareable, which collaborates with others to imagine, resource, network, and scale cooperative projects. Tom helps communities develop Libraries of Things (LoTs) and other forms of low-cost, environmentally friendly social infrastructure that help people meet their material needs. Tom’s current work includes expanding these sharing initiatives into housing developments, universities, and post-disaster recovery areas. He also serves as executive producer and host of the award-winning documentary film and podcast series The Response, producer of the Cities@Tufts Podcast, and communications lead for the Rural Power Coalition. Tom has co-founded several community- and sharing-based initiatives, including: A PLACE for Sustainable Living, Asheville Tool Library, REAL Cooperative (Regenerative Education, Action & Leadership), and the worker collective Critter Cafe. Shareable wants to see a just, connected, and joyful world where sharing is daily practice and communities flourish. Its current focus is on sharing hubs & infrastructure, Mutual Aid projects, and supporting and strengthening democratic, community-controlled cooperative businesses and organizations. We covered a lot, and so the conversation is split into two episodes. In Part 1, we hear why Shareable has pivoted from storytelling to engagement and support for groups to replicate successful sharing solutions. We discuss some of the key challenges and barriers to sharing, and what we can gain from sharing and other forms of mutual support We talk about a few different types of sharing initiatives, including community infrastructure projects. Tom explains the importance of storytelling, particularly in the context of disasters, and how the media often uses narratives that undermine our natural resilience and willingness to support each other. In Part 2 (available now), we cover the How To Guides, which cover a vast range of topics from how to reduce food waste to starting mutual aid funds, and Tom’s tips on how to get things started. You can hear my takeaways at the end of each section.

Dr. Patrick Schröder, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, assesses the progress and barriers for circular economy policymaking. Patrick Schröder specializes in the circular economy, climate change, resource governance, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). His work brings together science, policy, and media to help further evidence-based policies, communicate complex sustainability issues, and promote equitable governance solutions at the multilateral level. Patrick is currently the Coordinating Lead Author for one of the three working groups for the IPCC Assessment Report 7, reporting on Mitigation of Climate Change, and he is also the Coordinating Lead Author for the UN Global Environment Outlook 7. Patrick holds a PhD in Environmental Studies, and is now studying part-time for a second PhD in circular and regenerative design with the Centre for Sustainable Design. In 2024, UNIDO and Chatham House published a ground-breaking global stocktake of 75 national circular economy roadmaps featuring more than 2,800 policy actions. The first roadmap, from Japan, was published in 1999, and since 2016, as governments strive to accelerate their circular transitions, over 70 countries have published national circular economy roadmaps and strategies. The review aims to ‘bridge knowledge gaps and shed light on critical aspects of these publications’, and the authors point to a ‘significant lack of focus on the need to ensure a just and inclusive’ transition, warning that a ‘lack of recognition of the need to work collaboratively with the global community’ risks derailing a global just transition. Patrick tells us how he currently sees the global state of play for circular economy policies and roadmaps, where progress is happening and from a policymaking perspective, what is holding it back. The team at Chatham House have created a micro-site – circulareconomy.earth – and Patrick tells us more about that, and how we can use it.

Author Catherine Weetman unpacks the new edition of A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business, giving you a preview of the big changes and new insights. The new, 3rd edition was published by Kogan Page in paperback and e-book format on 3 November 2025, and the print edition for the US and Canada is out on the 25th of November. The book aims to help people get clearer on how successful companies are finding ways to do better with less – in other words, creating value without pumping yet more resources through ever-growing systems of production and consumption. Use the discount code in the shownotes to get 25% off, with free worldwide shipping.