Why We Throw Away Furniture, and What Designers Can Do About It (with Katryn Furmston)

Below is a transcript of our discussion with Katryn Furmston, a PhD student at Nottingham Trent University in the UK and an expert in eco-design.

We recorded this discussion as part of our Sustainable by Design podcast.

In this episode, we discussed what Katryn discovered about consumer attitudes toward furniture, especially with the rise of fast furniture, and how designers can adapt to lower their product's impact on the environment.

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Greg: First, Katryn, would you mind introducing yourself for the audience?

Katryn: So I'm Katryn Furmston. I am a PhD student at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. And I am studying ways that we can look at fast furniture to extend its life for the user.

Greg: Can you tell us about your background? Before starting your thesis, what were you doing?

Katryn: So I studied furniture and product design for an undergrad and a master's degree. And then I went into teaching. So I taught furniture and product design to undergrad and postgraduate students for seven years, whilst also doing a bit of design work on the side with a local designer.

Greg: Perfect. So you know about furniture, you know about sustainability, and you're doing research on top of that. That's going to be great.

Katryn: I like to think I'm a bit knowledgeable.

Greg: You can, I think. And about your thesis. So I think you've been working on that for a few months now, maybe years.

Katryn:  So I'm now in my third year. So it's been about two and a half years total. And I found so much information out. So lots of people will say that a PhD is really hard and, you know, you're going to hate it. You're going to hate life. I don't. I love my PhD. It's my baby. I just really enjoyed finding out new stuff and talking to people. That's one of the best bits. Just talking to people and finding out what they know and what they think and being able to apply that to what I've learned. That's so great.

Greg: And yeah, it's super encouraging for people who might, you know, consider writing a thesis and going for a PhD. And just out of curiosity, how many pages are you supposed to write?

Katryn: So it's roughly 80,000 words total. You can go up to 100,000 if you get really into it. But your supervisor and examiners don't really want that because that means, well, they still got to read the whole thing. So ideally, not the 100 and closer to the 80.

Greg: Okay. And what have you found so far? So I guess it's very difficult to condense three years and a half of research in just three minutes. But what did you find that was maybe shocking or outstanding during your research?

Katryn: Oh, so many things. So it's mainly around the end user and what they do with their furniture when they're finished with it. So methods of discard and the feelings around it. I'm really interested in what pushes people to actually go and discard their furniture. So, you know, is it something to do with the furniture itself, like whether it's stood up to the test of time? Or is it something to do with their actual emotions and how much they really like this piece of furniture? So what's been really interesting is sort of understanding that most people don't think about their furniture as being anything other than a background thing. Something that sort of is just there. They just don't think about it. And coming from studying furniture, that is just, I can't imagine anything weirder. Why would you not think about your furniture? But also, given having COVID and everything and everybody going online, you're seeing more like fancy backgrounds. It's more curated. And so some people might have a certain area of the house, which is really carefully curated. That's what people see. But what's elsewhere is very different. So they might have, it might be a bit scruffier. The collection might be a bit more eclectic, less on trend. And just the difference between these areas in the house is really interesting. It's just, it's nice to talk to people about sort of what they've chosen, why they've chosen it. With the Facebook marketplace these days, that's a great place for people to find all sorts of bits of furniture. And you'll find that lots of people are utilizing it as a new method of getting furniture and then get brand new things. And some of the deals that people are getting are incredible.

Greg: What's interesting about your approach is that I guess when people study end of life, usually we focus on very technical things. Like, is the furniture durable? Is it strong enough to support you for years? But the truth is that we're very often, I think, ignoring the emotional aspects as well. Like, you might discard a piece of furniture just because it's not your style anymore. And that's very interesting because I think this is something that when we talk about product design, we, most of the time we focus on materials or, but we don't really study the emotional part of it. Like, how can we design a product that people won't get tired of?

Katryn: Oh, absolutely. And obviously, you have like IDEO and user-centered design and like, so some people study that and they sort of really try to understand the user, but it's still just that actual consumption and not the discard and the reasons why and where as well. So what drives people to discard an item of furniture in different places and how much does their emotional attachment to it have any bearing on this? And that's sort of something that I've been like really analyzing in my data most recently, actually. And it's fascinating because the more emotional attachment people seem to have, the more care they go over in terms of making sure it finds a good home or that they separate everything out so that things can be recycled or reused or so they can discard of it in the most responsible way. Whereas the less they care about it, the more likely they are to just shove it on the street and hope somebody picks up or take it to the tip and hope that somebody else clears up after them. And it's this idea, and I do think recycling is partly to behave, to blame for this as a, as a problem because we're encouraged to just put things in the recycling. But nobody talks about this idea of mixed methods, mixed materials and how that can complicate the idea of actually being able to recycle things. And that once you've bonded certain materials together, there is no way of recycling them. But because we assume, ah, it's fine because I'll just shove it in the recycling and it becomes somebody else's problem. I don't have to think about it. Somebody else deals with it and I can just get something new. It's so easy to just buy and discard and buy and discard that at the end of the day, it becomes this vicious cycle.

Greg: In my city in France, we're having public debates about waste management. They invite experts and they invite the audience to share their opinion about how waste should be handled in our city. Right now, it's a total mess because we produce so much waste, and we have to just send it to other cities because we have too much. And one of the experts that was called, you know, during these debates, he was mad at IKEA. He was like: "I got a call from the French IKEA CEO who was like, why do you hate us so much?" And he was like: "it's easy because people think that if they throw away their IKEA chairs or IKEA cupboards, et cetera, they think that it's going to be recycled" . But the truth, like he said, it's mixed materials. So it's much harder than what people think.

Thanks for sharing, you know, the key points of your thesis. I hope we'll be able to read the rest very soon. And I think it's a great introduction for the rest of the discussion. What I liked about you, Katie, is that usually when we talk about eco design, most of the people will talk about materials because there is, you know, this idea that most of the products impact lies in the materials, which is true.

But there are other things you can do to just reduce the impact of your products. And it can be around the end of life, like you said, or maybe about how do you keep the product longer, et cetera. So I think it's another approach that's very interesting.

And I'm just curious to know, like, in your opinion, as both a designer and now a researcher, what would you say are the main options if I want to optimize my products for end of life or to extend its whole life?

Katie: So I suppose the key things are, you know, our age old three R's. So reduce, reuse and recycle.

Obviously, I clearly have a tenuous relationship with recycle. So we'll focus on the reduce and the reuse aspects. So in terms of reducing, it's not just about the materials you're using, but also the waste that you're creating. How can you, like, reduce, like, what the excess, the offcuts, those side of things? How can you reduce the amount of bonded materials? So we're talking like melamine-faced chipboard and things, because let's be honest, those are bad materials that should not be put together. Because it's plastic and wood. You cannot recycle those ones. That's so bad for the environment. And yet we're just willy-nilly putting it and everything. Just because, oh, it's wiped clean. This is magic. So let's try and avoid those. Or if you want to, do research and find a way to separate them, because you would make a lot of money from that. Particularly if Ikea got hold of you, because they'll be on you like a bad rash.

But we're not just talking about the actual products themselves, but also as a designer, you might make mock-ups and things. So although I think it's great, in this day and age where we've got an issue with waste, we need to be, like, utilizing the technology that's around us. We have so much technology now that allows us to digitally visualize everything. So whether that's using CAD software or whether that's using VR so you can, like, physically be around this piece of furniture and interact with it and things. Either works, but it reduces the amount of actual material waste and, therefore, technically, how much you have to pay to get rid of that waste because you've got less of it.

So these bits, they all add up to that reduction part.

But then it's also thinking about disassembly. So can you take things apart? Because if you can take them apart, we can better look at reusing or being able to recycle the different elements. But also, you'll find that the things that most likely go within a product are going to be things like your handles, your hinges, your legs. So being able to replace those, those small aspects will prolong the life of the furniture. And essentially what you're doing is creating this longevity of not just a product, but its use and your relationship with a customer. Because they're able to come back to you and have this conversation. You can also offer things like MOTs on your furniture.

So particularly for when you're looking at office furniture, for example, this would be a great way to come in and just give it a bit of a touch up where it needs it. Make sure everything looks nice. And, you know, it's a bit like a spring clean, really. But on your furniture and you get money for that. And the customer is happy because you've got a great relationship and they've got something that looks beautiful again. So it all sort of like works together.

Greg: That makes a lot of sense. And it's something that we've seen with a lot of companies. Like, for example, the first episode we had for the podcast was with a company called Umage. And, for example, if you go to the website, and I think it's not something that you see very often, you're going to see spare parts. Let's say, the leg breaks, or maybe it's a part of the chair that breaks before. You can buy a replacement part, and you don't have to buy a new product. So that's great.

One thing I wanted to ask you, Katie, as a designer, how difficult is it to design with disassembly in mind? Like, what kind of techniques do you have to use? Is it something that you can learn somewhere? How does it work exactly?

Katie: Well, there are plenty of courses, but they'll focus more on sort of circular design or sustainability within design. So it just becomes a small part of the whole sort of learning process. But actually, I think it's just making this conscious decision to think about the actual construction of the product.

So it's all very well-designed in this beautiful piece. But if you can't work out yourself how it comes apart, then realistically, who knows if you've actually designed a great piece or not? Because a lot of the time you might find that some designers will create this idea and it goes off to manufacture and they sort of work out, you know, how everything's going to go together. And you just sort of put an idea of materials and they'll just go, ta-da! And, you know, magically, this thing that you've visualized comes to life. It might not be what you've visualized, but this thing sort of is created. However, if you make more of a conscious sort of effort to get into understanding how bits are put together, how are you going to attach the legs to the body?

So, if you're actually thinking about that joining method, please don't use just a load of screws or particularly if you're going into chipboard because that is not going to last. Or, like, bolts that have Allen keys. I know it's great and we've got knockdown fittings that really help with flat-pack furniture. But at the end of the day, they are the things that break.

And it's not just the actual, like, units themselves. It's also where they're attached to the actual product. So, you'll often find that, you know, IKEA, the bits that go are where we've got, like, hinges attached to the chipboard or just randomly in the magic space of cardboard that is in between these layers of plastic. Obviously, that's never going to last.

So, if you actually think about how can I put these together in a way that can be taken apart, put back together, taken apart, put back together, what you're actually doing is allowing yourself a better design. You're allowing your customers the option to take it apart and take it with them to different places. It's easier shipping because it comes apart at every point.

And when it comes to, like, actually separating out the materials, we've already done half the job for everybody because everything comes apart easier. But it's a learning process. And you have to make this conscious effort to just really think about, you know, how are you going to put every single part together, not just creating this beautiful overall design?

Greg: So, it's fascinating because it sounds like, you know, traditional designers, they focus on making things beautiful. But what you say is also trying to anticipate the life of the product, making sure you can, let's say, move with it, move to a new flat and still being able to reassemble everything. It's super interesting. And also, I would say one of the other takeaways you shared was, I guess, don't delegate too much to the supplier. It's not up to them to figure out the disassembly. If you trust them for that, it could be a problem, right?

Katie: Yes, yeah.

Greg: And I'm curious, Katie, so you mentioned a few materials that you recommend avoiding, like chipboard and cardboard sometimes, I guess. But are there any materials that you recommend using on the other side? Like, maybe it's easier, like, would you recommend using wood or steel or materials like that?

Katie: To me, anything that is made out of wood is great because you can always sand it back and recoat it. And you have the option to work with the material if there are any breaks or if you need to apply a different bit of hardware to it. You know, it's so versatile and material.

And because it's natural, at the end of the day, it goes back into the earth. So even if you were to leave it on the side of the road or, like, I don't know, dump it in the middle of a forest or what have you (But don't do that!) You know, it would decompose over a fair bit of time.

But if you compare that to anything that is plastic-based or is, like, melamine coating any form of wood, that's never going to decompose. And you're essentially limiting the life of a product based, I mean, obviously the material is going to survive. But the actual product itself is just going to be this pile of rubbish at the end of the day. I also quite like the use of sort of metal parts because you have the option to repowder coat. Again, it's that idea of being able to sand things back and give it a new coat. Essentially, you're giving it this new pair of clothes. Every woman will know that, you know, when you buy yourself a new outfit, you feel great again. You get a new haircut. You feel great again. You know, you give a piece of furniture a new coat of paint. You repowder coat the legs. It looks better. It looks like it's got a new life again. It looks happier. It looks younger. Everything works out, you know, for everybody.

If we utilize these sort of, these materials that can be looked after in this way. If you're using materials that are very sort of heavily processed, like anything that involves plastic or uses a lot of sort of chemical-based glues, those things aren't going to come apart. And whilst a lot of sofas these days do contain a huge amount of cardboard, purely for shaping and just making it sort of work in the beautiful flowing forms that we are getting used to, that doesn't mean that we have to rely on it to block out bits of plastic to be a bit of furniture.

So what a lot of people don't know is that inside your IKEA furniture, particularly, so take the Kallax units, for example, it's all air and cardboard. It's just a honeycone bit of cardboard spread out and sandwiched between some bits of chipboard and plastic. That's all it is. And when you break it down to that, how can you have any value, not just monetary, but actually developing this emotional value towards a piece of furniture that is essentially cardboard and air?

Greg: Yes. And I have one second anecdote to share. Two weeks ago, I attended a fair in Paris called the Workspace Expo. And there you see office furniture manufacturers exhibiting their latest pieces. I met a company which really fascinated me. So they produce school chairs. As you can expect, they're built to be super resistant. Their salesman told me about the tests that they have to go through. It's just crazy. And in the end, these products are so strong that right now they're collecting chairs, which were, I think, made in the 70s, 80s. And like you said, they just have to collect them. They have to change the backrest. But everything else, they just powder coat them. And it goes for a new life. So I think what you said was interesting. Like go for materials that are natural, like wood, and they will decompose easily. Or if you go with metals or other stronger pieces, you need materials that can be recycled and actually be used or even be refurbished.

One question that we didn't mention or one topic that we didn't discuss, Katie, was the emotional aspect. I was curious to know if during your research, you identified how materials can affect the emotions of the buyer. Like are people more attached to, I don't know, wood furniture or maybe they even prefer cardboard furniture?

Katie: I mean, I think people like the idea of cardboard furniture. They just worry about the practicality of it, particularly around any liquids.

So I'm not sure we're getting so much of an emotional value from cardboard. But I have found that particularly wood, because it holds evidence of memories. So it has scars and it gains, like obviously it's quite easy to mark a fair bit of wood furniture. So you get a child stabbing it with a fork or you might put a burnt pot on it. You can create these marks really easily. And essentially what they're doing is preserving moments in time. And what I found is that a lot of people treasure these aspects.

So I spoke to a lady who her children have left home and it's now just her and her husband in their family house. And she obviously finds it quite lonely and she misses them. But she has this lovely kitchen table. It's a big pine thing. Nothing special. But it's got the marks of where her children have like stabbed each other across the table. Or they've been there doing artwork and they've spilt something. Or they're just a bit gouged out of it and all sorts. But it's precious to her because of these memories. And every time she looks at it or sits at it, she thinks about having these meals around the table with her daughters, with her parents who unfortunately are no longer around. So she's got this massive family memory base attached to this table. And the way she talks about it, you can feel how much she treasures it. And most people might say, well, it's just a table. It's not even anything fancy. There is no monetary worth to this table. It's not a branded thing. It is just a pine table. But she loves it. And what's great about it is if it were to go to another home, firstly, there's the option that you can just sand the table down, repaint it, or you could put a varnish or you could put oil on it. Whatever your choice of finish is, you can put it on there and it becomes a new table. So you can make it yours. But also, you can continue preserving those bits of history in that piece. So you'll find that particularly with more antique pieces, again, they might not be anything special. They might not be anything that was expensive. But it's got all these scars that tell the history of the piece. It's like the wood is actually able to tell you its story from creation to where you are now based on just these small marks.

You'll find lots of people really love old school desks, particularly like the wooden ones with the metal legs. Some of them still have the remnants of where they would have had an ink pot and things. But people love them because, you know, teenagers have scrawled into them like such and such love, such and such, or such and such was here. And it's fantastic because, again, it's history in this piece. And, I mean, you can send it back as many times as you want. But there will always be some remnant of that within the wood.

And even you'll get a lot of where you've had woodwork shops in schools and the massive tables. I mean, they're pretty hefty bits of wood make up these tables. But the scars in those and any time a school goes to get rid of them, you will find so many people trying to purchase the tables. Firstly, because they're just great as a workbench to have in your house if you just have one of them. But also the history that comes with them. Like, you've got so many, like, divots and things in the table. And, like, people don't mind if they add to those because it's already scarred. They're adding to that history. But also they just love seeing all these bits where other people have interacted with this item.

And so the emotional attachment is very much formed based over personal memories or just the evidence of history in front of them. So they can see, you know, the passage of time in this one piece. And I think that's absolutely beautiful.

Greg: And do you think it's something that now if we think in terms of generation, do you think the younger people have the same emotional triggers, emotional attachment to furniture? Like, during your research, have you seen a difference between the younger people and the relationship to furniture and the older ones? Or is it a universal thing?

Katie: Oh, no, no. We all have different views.

So take those who would be over 60. Their relationship with furniture is very much this: "Oh, well, it was handed down to me. The only way I could get furniture was by being handed it down."

Then you've got those who are sort of in their sort of like 40s-ish where they've, the use of charity shops is becoming a bit more acceptable to the general public. So they might have started utilizing this way of getting secondhand. But they've also worked really hard to be able to afford to buy the things they want. They've invested. They've saved up for months or years to get certain particular brands. Like it might be like a G-plan sofa or an Eames chair or these sorts of, you know, big brand names.

And then you come to sort of your 20s and 30s where you've got people who are, you know, in their own home or they're just getting to that stage. And we're seeing sort of like this divide and you've got one half who are very much everything secondhand. "I'm not buying because it costs too much." And they go and they raid all the Facebook marketplace. They raid the charity shops. They raid all secondhand stores. Anything they can get into, they're there. And they create this very eclectic mix or they upcycle things and make it very personalized.

And on the other side, you've got this lot that is very fashion driven. So they want to be on trend. But these trends are obviously changing faster and faster. So this is very much impacted by fashion brands. So like looking at clothing and things. Thinking about places like Temu and Wayfair who make things so easy to get that, well, it's really easy to just swap your furniture out. Or one minute you'll have one piece. The next week you're changing. You'll have a completely new look.

There used to be that trends changed over about seven years. So you'd follow, for example, magazines like House Beautiful for interior design tips. And you'd spend seven years doing your house and making it all beautiful and fit this aesthetic. And then sell your house and start all over again with the next trend.

But now, because everything's so cheap and accessible, you know, people can just churn through it. Like nobody's business. And with brands offering this idea of, well, it's free advertisement if we send them something for free. And we get them to advertise it and us on their social media channel. So we're getting all this stuff going out. And it's only really shown the fashion side of things.

So where clothing is just being like, you know, collected in these giant hoard bags where there's like over 100 garments, which are never worn and just dumped or put in the bin. But similar things are starting to happen with furniture. And we're sort of encouraging this idea of free advertisement through the use of social media platforms. But realistically, it's not free because you're essentially giving something that is what I would class as rubbish to somebody to advertise as being a good piece of furniture.

But it will just go straight through to the tip. It's not going to stay anywhere. It's unlikely to actually be kept and loved. Because, well, why would you when you're just going to get a new piece next week?

Greg: So it's very interesting because I guess as a designer, it's a natural tendency to follow trends. But here it's very interesting because it means you also have to design to avoid trends in a way or to try to understand what the trends would look like in years from now. So it's very interesting. It's not only about the materials. So you have the materials, you have the disassembly, but you also have to take care of the aesthetics of the products, trying to avoid something that is too trendy or that adheres to a specific trend.

Katie: If you look at kitchens, for example, this is the biggest thing that people are likely to change. So you move into a new house, one of the first things they will change is the kitchen. Every time, regardless.

And these kitchens are essentially just made out of MDF. All of it is just a load of rubbish, basically. It's just fibers.

And they strip it all out and they get a brand new in. Even though all carcasses are now a standard size. So they wouldn't ever have to rip out the carcass if it was made in a decent material, such as solid wood. They could rearrange. The things would slide out, slide back in.

You know, chop and change, swap, get extra, sell them to somebody else. And if we had wooden doors, like everybody had to have a wooden door, you can paint it to look any way you want it to look. It does not have to be just the wood appearance. And I think that's one of the biggest problems is that we're utilizing these sort of plastic coatings to give colors and patterns and things. And we're forgetting that we can put all of these onto timber. Like a lick of paint, whether you spray it, whether you hand paint it, sponge it on, whatever. There is the ability to put colors on this material and then in its next life, strip it all off and put a different one on. And I think that's part of one of the problems, particularly in kitchens, that there is this possibility to do this great thing. So you can always have personalized kitchens because it can be whatever color you want.

And yet we're still using MDF and melamine and things like that, where we're being very particular about the fact that, oh, we have to use this material because it allows us to have this color. Or it allows us to have this pattern or we can create this finish. But realistically, we can create those on like timber, for example. Even if you're just putting like a vinyl on top of it and stripping it back. Still the ability to keep this wooden structure and redecorate it each time.

Greg: That makes a lot of sense. Until now, we've discussed a lot about the design phase, optimizing for disassembly, trying to ignore trends, pick the right materials. I'm just curious to know if there's anything they can do after selling the product.

Katie: Well, I think having manuals is a really good way of being able to keep in touch with your customer because it's something that can tell them about care and repair of their items. And by being able to care for and repair the items, it helps to build that emotional attachment.

I like to think of it as you are adopting an animal, a pet. And so the more you care for it and look after it, the bigger your attachment to it is. Same works with furniture. Same works with all items.

The more you get to personalize your phone, the more you love that phone, the more you want to keep those items. It is very much about being able to build in that emotional attachment through how the consumer interacts with it.

If you are able to learn to do these things for the furniture, then you're going to learn to care for it in a different way. If you've had to repair it, then you're going to be more attached to it because you're like, I did that. And that's part of the great sales philosophy behind IKEA flat pack is the DIY, do it yourself. And you get through it. And you're like, oh my God, I made this. That's amazing. This is really cool.

Greg: It's true.

Katie: With IKEA, it wears off a lot faster, particularly for those that find it difficult to follow the IKEA instructions or for those that just disregard the instructions full stop. And I think it needs to go further than just being part of this putting it together phase because we're so used to that now that we're like, I don't really care. I can pay somebody to do it for me.

Greg: It's so interesting. I have two reactions to that. First, I think that usually when you design products, I guess you want the products to be carefree. Like you want people not to have to worry about it. And what you say is very interesting because, like you said, maintaining a product is also having this emotional investment in it. And it's very counterintuitive for me. The second thing which is interesting is I visit a lot of the Vitra website. I'm not 40 yet, but I dream of having a Eames chair. So I'm totally in that category you mentioned earlier.

But what I noticed the other day is that they have a care category that is pretty rich. Like they have a lot of content about how to take care of these specific products. If it's, for example, plastic, "you need to do that". If it's, I don't know, glass fiber, "you need to do that". So it's very interesting to see that some brands are already anticipating these needs and they're already taking that into account.

So we've talked a lot about what's happening right now, Katie. I'm curious to know if for you there are any obvious trends or obvious, I don't know, regulations that are going to affect the discussion that we're having right now.

Katie: So I think one of the biggest ones is digital product passports. So these are essentially QR codes that are going to be put onto all products so that we can track them from their creation onwards. And this will tell us all sorts of details.

So it tells you what materials it's made up of, what processes it's been through, what countries it's been through to get to you. It tells you everything. So we're going to be seeing much more transparency, theoretically, from brands because they shouldn't be able to hide where everything's coming from. So I think that's a really big one. And a lot across Europe are already looking at bringing these in and investigating how this can be done in an effective way. We're seeing that already in sort of clothing products. A lot of labels these days come with QR codes. There's your product passport in action.

How it's going to be put into different bits of furniture is still questionable because just having a label, as we've seen with sort of the fire tags in the UK on sofas, it doesn't take much to just pull that thing off. So being able to put them in the right place in the right way so they stay there, that is a big question.

Greg: And I'm curious to discuss more about the digital product passport because I'm based in France. So my perspective is, I guess, the perspective of someone who lives in the European Union. And I know that for those who don't know, there is a law that has already been voted in the European Parliament, which is called the ESPR, which means Eco Design for Sustainable Products. And this law, while the details of the law are not clear to be fully transparent, one of the things that we know is that these tags that you mentioned, these digital product passports, are going to be mandatory for any piece of furniture that's going to be sold in the EU. In terms of deadline, I'm following the discussions very closely, and it's not very clear when it will be ready. Like, the indications that we had were probably around 2027 or 2028.

Now, while we have you, Katie, I'm very curious to know if there is the same kind of discussion in the UK. Like, do you think it's going to be also implemented in the UK? Do you think we're going to have separate paths?

Katie: So, the discussion is happening. There's lots of research going into how it can be done.

As for the when, that is happening less. Obviously, there are ideals. So, we've heard talk of 2030. We've also heard talk of 2050.

So, we don't really have a specific at this point. I mean, well, I suppose that really depends on who you're talking to. But it's quite vague in terms of date.

But it is happening. And we're bringing in a lot of other standards and regulations to support that. Lots around specific terminology that you can and can't use. So, it's really trying to, it's tightening down all those sort of little bits that sort of support it to help bring it in.

Because I think very much we do want to align with Europe. Because obviously, you're our next door neighbors. And if we do not align with you, there's a very long way to go to get to anybody else. We want to be good friends and keep this relationship, you know, in a positive manner. And nobody can sort of sell products over in Europe if we don't align to the same standards. But also, having the same standards means everything's the same.

And that also means that things like reuse, recycling, being able to process products after they're done with, is easier across the board because we can utilize research from each other and put in place the same sort of support network for post-consumer.

Greg: That makes a lot of sense. I feel like we've covered a lot from really design, emotions, and also the future with the DPP. That's fascinating. Thanks so much, Katie.

Katie: You're very welcome. I'm always happy to talk. And I've had a really great time. I don't know if you can tell.