This project will conduct a feasibility study into the re-design of power tools to retain material within the economy over several cycles of use, thus “closing the loop”. The goal is that the new designs should lead to products with a lower environmental impact, and less dependency on strategic materials. The project will deliver a series of implementable design changes which will make power tool products more suitable for repair and reuse, without introducing additional net costs. These design changes will be disseminated to the group of Kingfisher companies (B&Q, Castorama, Brico Depot, Screwfix, Koctas) and more widely disseminated to the home improvement retail sector.

35 million paintbrushes are discarded each year in the UK, clogging landfills and wasting resources, creating an estimated 5000 tons of waste. In most cases, brushes are disposed-of due to poor cleaning by consumers, while the handles could be reused immediately. Other 'circular' barriers are that no closed loop collection system exists to take used brushes back, plus suitable end-of-life options for them are not clear either. This project will see Kingfisher and Seymourpowell explore the design of a system to reload brush heads so that consumers can maintain and reuse their paintbrush handles. As part of this we plan to design a returnable packaging system in which consumers can put used bristle heads into the original packaging and post it back to the retailer, who will identify and manage a circular end-of-life route for this to avoid landfill - be that reuse, or as technical or biological cycles.