Which concept focuses on designing products to facilitate recovery and recycling after use?

• A. Secondary Recycling (Open-Loop Recycling)
• B. Design for Recovery
• C. Mass Burn
• D. Conversion

Answer: (B)

Design for Recovery focuses on building products so that, after use, materials can be readily recovered and recycled. This means choosing recyclable materials, designing for easy disassembly, using removable fasteners instead of permanent bonds, and labeling materials clearly so separation at end-of-life is straightforward. It also involves avoiding mixed materials or processes that hinder recycling, and favoring modular designs that allow components to be reused or upgraded. When products are designed with end-of-life in mind, recovery rates improve, contamination is reduced, and the materials can re-enter the loop rather than ending up as waste, which is a cornerstone of circular economy thinking. Open-loop or secondary recycling describes what happens to recovered materials after collection, not how the product is designed to enable that recovery; mass burn refers to incineration, and conversion covers energy or material transformation that isn’t about designing for end-of-use recovery.