12 elements to make resource recovery antifragile

In my last post about the fragility of the waste industry, I wrote about how attempts from the waste industry at resource recovery make for fragility, or at best, robustness (as used by Nicholas Nassim Taleb). This means that the best the industry can hope for is that major shocks ("black swans") do not cause too much harm.

Black Swans (with local Perth skyline). Source: PlanBookTravel

Looking to minimise harm doesn't really lend itself to thriving. To truly thrive, resource recovery needs to become antifragile. That is, to establish itself in ways such that it is strengthened by black swans.

Taleb (as summarised in John Hagel's review of Antifragile) gives a handy 12 point list of elements that go toward creating antifragility.

The fragility of the waste industry

Nicholas Nassim Taleb of The Black Swan fame, has recently written a new book called Antifragile. This book essentially takes the observation of black swans (highly unlikely, high impact events) and seeks to understand how the existence of black swans can be exploited.

Rather than systems being susceptible to black swans (ie fragile), or even resistant to black swans (resilient or robust), the goal is to design systems that thrive in the presence of black swans. Taleb coins the word "antifragile" to describe such systems.

What does that have to do with waste?

Well, I'd argue that it has a great deal to do with waste. Whenever the waste industry turns its mind to zero waste, it seems to do so in a perfectly fragile way.

Networks to create a world without waste

Smart is what the network makes us. Individually we are each just different shades of dumb

via +David Amerland

I have a vision of the future, and within that vision is a world where there is no waste. No wasted materials, no wasted lives, no acceptance of a world of detritus upon which the good and the great clamber.

I see a world where everything is valued in its own way, where we work to make things better.

I see materials closely coupled with reprocessors and reusers, wastes becoming byproducts for reincorporation into the world. In this sense there is no waste. Only byproducts.

Getting to this world is a leap. It is a leap over the gross simplification of a few big players believing that they can optimise the market, and instead the elegant simplification of many small players swarming around data.

In this world, connection is king. It is connecting reprocessors with byproducts. Manufacturers with ideas. Analogies with innovators. Never letting a waste arise for want of new perspectives, information, examples.

Swirling around all of this connection must be a continued stream of data. Not the sort of data that is aggregated to strip out all usefulness, but fine grained data. Detailed in time, space, quality. The sort of data that lets you navigate, swarm, evolve. The sort of continued stream of quality data that lets the whole ecosystem of products and byproducts thrive.

Tributary at headwaters of Murray River. Source: Adam Johnson