the story of: electronics and bottled water

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_7i6T_H78

The story of electronics takes a position I completely side with and it's refreshing to be taught (just today) about not only 'green' design but the ethics of design. I know Europe now have laws dictating that a certain percentage of a product be recyclable but if it is recycled in a poorly thought out way it seems it can be costly and detrimental to all.

At the risk of sounding like a hippy (or worse my dad) it sucks that there are so many products that need only small repairs to be fixed but it is cheaper to get a new one???? go figure. At my current house we regularly pick up things dumped on the side of the road that still work or can be used to make say furniture. It seems to me to be a smart idea as this 'garbage' is basically free materials that only need some intelligent design to be reborn as new products. The downfall of this is generally popular aesthetics, heaven forbid someone should come to your house and see a bookshelf made of say old computer casings.

Also the power of marketing needs to be excepted and used positively to change things.

If recycling is truly to be embraced it should be much more accessible to the real(read lazy) world and like the video says certain materials should only be used when neccesary if at all. I am looking forward to what seems to be a change from consumables to a time of well crafted products either made to last and be fixed or to be excepted as throwaway and use according safe degradable materials.

Of course it's easy to see why it doesn't happen when the end user feels so far removed from responsibility, so designers have to take up the challenge and design products that are better for the world but also are far more appealing (which also definitely has to mean affordable)to consumers.

Recycling reflection: 'Giving Packaging a New Life'

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.

brain bulb

disaster solutions

this post on design4disaster looks really promising as it has some structual integrity to cope with further damage

Concrete Canvas

5.10 earths? that's crazy and i was trying to make myself sound greener than i probably am. It doesn't really come as a surprise though, i live with two other guys and we each have a computer and there are two TV's with at least two going at any one time. I think it is all too easy to have a disconnection with our impact on the environment in modern society especially in a large city like Sydney. Excuses like having a 'busy lifestyle' seem to be the permission slip excusing us from a duty to take a lil more care of the earth.

In true human form i will now dedicate my life to lowering my houses footprint by sitting in the dark and turning off the boys computers while they are using them.. you know just the normal overreaction you get when you find out you've done something bad, but don't worry if this is happening to someone around you it only lasts a couple of days until i/they forget about our guilt and go back to "normal"