It is interesting to see how far the technology behind recycling has come, for instance the infra red detection system to identify composite materials in juice packs, I never really think about designing machines or systems to improve recycling but it is obviously an extremely important part of consumer products and therefore if you can improve the efficiency or quality of recycled materials you can not only make better products but reduce your material costs as well... something to think about for sure.
Plastic seems to be the hardest to sort, I'm surprised how well they can do it to be honest.When designing for recyclability? I think it is most important to follow Mar's tip of minimising the number of plastics used and try to keep to one if possible.
I like how we are now being taught to think about the full life of a product not just while in use, and a design is praised for its simplicity and ability to minimise waste be it in production or materials. I'm glad that the idea that good design must be extremely complicated and that excessive must mean better is dead and buried (hopefully).
The fact is that there are to many products as it is, just go down to your local electrical store and check out the number of different kettles ( they all do the same bloody thing!!). so who can blame the poor consumer for being wasteful and lazy when it comes to recycling, most things are cheaper to replace than fix and only have 1 to 2 year lives anyway, the responsibility has to lie with the people making the products. In saying that people will do anything for a buck and so companies will keep making $15 kettles in the hope that they can sell more than their competitors. So who is left? the sneaky eco conscious designer thats who!!! By having some realistic forethought about what happens to products and learning about sustainable design designers can at least reduce the damage that our consumer crazy society is doing. And no this does not mean I think we should make everything from bamboo.
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