Debottlenecking Our Journey to Stimulate Collaboration in Multidisciplinary Projects

The first year of this project was very eye-opening even though we experienced quite some hurdles in various forms. Two overarching hurdles were a lack of data and, as a result, difficulty in clearly defining our research field. During the project and team meetings, the discussions underlined the need to demarcate and have a united multidisciplinary perspective on the research topic. In time, we became aware that to join forces we need to understand the shared problems collectively better. Therefore, we chose to firstly focus our attention on the exchange of monodisciplinary issues within the team. For example, providing the space to discuss and become familiar with each other’s methods, jargon, and hurdles. During this process, it was important to allow for sufficient time as we built the foundation for our collaborations. We encountered a big lack of data and literature, especially on the amounts and compositions of the textile material that flow through the wardrobes of Dutch society and end up in various waste management or disposal streams as well as information on the chemical safety of textile materials. Such data gaps were much worse than expected. Thus, the process of aligning our knowledge, data gaps, terminologies, and problems was far more effortful and time-consuming than we had expected beforehand, as the research on textiles in the context of circular economy is relatively novel and rapidly evolving.

In the following year, after having discussions with the team, we decided to change our separate deliverables for joint deliverables. Hence, we were able to better address our objectives and work together on filling the data gaps needed to achieve the joint deliverables. We also faced different challenges in terms of personal situations and organisational factors that caused some delays in the project but did not have a major effect on the work. During the second year, we overcame our challenges and conducted a consumer questionnaire with input from two institutes. This questionnaire also included an intervention targeting unused garments laying in the closets of Dutch consumers—an issue hardly explored in textile literature. We also collaborated on a questionnaire based on the Butterfly Framework methodology to explore experts' impressions of the drivers and barriers to circular economy with a focus on chemical safety, using recycling and reuse of food contact materials (FCMs) and textiles as examples.

Additionally, data gaps regarding the quantities and composition of the Dutch textile reuse and recycling chain were addressed through a combination of data collection methods. Due to the common understanding that we have built in the first year, we were able to come to a unique collaborative approach by adding data from consumer studies and citizen science to a technical description of the textile material flows (i.e., material flow analysis). Furthermore, two sorting trials have been conducted that also delivered input into the material flow analysis. The material flow analysis can be used in the future to assess future scenarios of the textile reuse and recycling chain to debottleneck this system.

Project learnings:

Struggles (Things that slowed us down)

• Underestimating the lack of data in the field;
• Overestimating the activities to be made within the given timeframe of 2 years;
• Lack of sufficient time to align objectives at the start of the project or prior to the project: too many promises, too little time;
• Unfamiliarity with each other’s expertise and jargon.

Lessons Learned

• Joint deliverables using a multidisciplinary approach allow for better collaboration and learning;
• Flexibility to make changes in the project provided less work stress and satisfaction with the work;
• Consistent meetings built closer connections and understanding within the team;
• Project members should be open and willing to cross borders over their own expertise/discipline and willing to explain their own expertise in basics.

What would have helped us

• More time to become familiar with each other’s expertise and to align activities and learnings (prior or at the start of the project).

What we are proud of

• Reaching awareness that we need each other (i.e., multiple expertise) if we want to debottleneck recycling;
• Cooperatively developing questionnaires as well as data analysis to be used in both consumer studies as well as technical studies;
• Utilising a unique collaborative approach combining consumer and technical research designs.