Product Design, Lifecycle, Waste, & The Environment Global Consumer Culture

Product Design, Lifecycle, Waste, & The Environment

Global Consumer Culture

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Announcements

Product Design

Product Development ModelsLaBat & Sokolowski (1999)

Implementation

1. Changes that can be made in a current system

2. More drastic changes

Define the Problem

& Research

Creative Exploration

“inspired guesswork”

Product Development ModelsIndustrial Design Archer (1985)

Executive Phase

Analytical Phase

Creative Phase

Target Consumer (profile, needs, desires)Cultural Context (mediator)Design Criteria (Functional, Expressive, Aesthetic)

Product Development ModelsApparel Design Lamb & Kallal (1992)

1. Problem Recognition (generator of process)

2. Preliminary Ideas (brainstorming)3. Design Refinement (choose the good ideas)4. Prototype Development5. Evaluate (Function, Expression, Aesthetic)6. Implement Design

Product Lifecycle

Natural Resources & Technical Nutrients

Manufacturing Retail Use Trash

The succession of stages a product goes through

Product Lifecycle




Product Lifecycle




Creative Destruction

“. . .the perpetual cycle of destroying the old and less efficient product or service and replacing it with the new, more efficient ones”

-Thomas Friedman

Cradle to Cradle

Industrial Revolution

World Wars Cold War

General Timeline

Globalization

Motto of Industrial Revolution

“If brute force doesn’t work, you’re not using

enough of it.”

Cradle to Grave?

Natural Resources

Manufacturing Retail

Model for Product Development

Use Trash

Does it ever go away?

Built-in Obsolescence“Away” doesn’t exist

Design Paradigm

Industrial Revolution

World Wars Cold War

General Timeline

Globalization

Universal Design Solutions“worst-case-scenario”

“designing a product for the worst possible circumstance, so that it will always operate

with the same efficacy”

Cradle to Grave?

Natural Resources



Use Trash

Does it ever go away?

“Built-in Obsolescence”

DOWNCYCLINGDesign without further use in mind

and thus only postponing journey to the landfill

What happens after the decline?

Waste Landfill

Recycling Down-cycling?

Cradle to Grave?“Away” doesn’t exist

Cradle to CradleNatural Resources & Technical Nutrients



Use Trash

TRUE RECYCLING“a product that can be broken down and circulated infinitely

in industrial cycles”

“Away” doesn’t

exist

Rethinking Product DesignProducts Plusas a buyer you got the item or service you wanted, plus additives that you didn’t ask for and didn’t know were included and that may be harmful to you and your loved ones.

Intergenerational remote tyrannyOur tyranny over future generations through the effects of our actions today

License to harmA permit issued by a government to an industry so that it may dispense sickness, destruction, and death at an “acceptable” rate

Rethinking Product Design

products plusas a buyer you got the item or service you wanted, plus additives that you didn’t ask for and didn’t know were included and that may be harmful to you and your loved ones.

Rethinking Product Design

Intergenerational remote tyrannyOur tyranny over future generations through the effects of our actions today

Is being “less bad” enough?

ReduceAvoidMinimizeSustainLimit Halt

Is being “less bad” enough?

“The best way to reduce any environmental impact is not to recycle more, but to produce

and dispose of less.”-Lilienfeld & Rathje

Eco-efficiency

•Doing more with less•Adding more value to a good or service while using fewer resources and releasing less pollution

Is Eco-Efficiency Ideal?

• Release fewer pounds of toxic wastes into the air, soil, and water every year

• Measure prosperity by less activity• Meet the stipulations of thousands of complex

regulations to keep people and natural systems from being poisoned too quickly

• Produce fewer materials that are so dangerous that they will require future generations to maintain constant vigilance while living in terror

• Result in smaller amounts of useless waste• Put smaller amounts of valuable materials in holes all

over the planet where they can never be retrieved

-McDonough & Braungart

Is Eco-Efficiency Ideal?

“As long as human beings are regarded as “bad,” zero is a good goal. But to be less

bad is to accept things as they are, to believe that poorly designed,

dishonorable, destructive systems are the best humans can do. This is the ultimate failure of the “be less bad” approach: a

failure of the IMAGINATION.”-McDonough & Braungart

4 R’s

ReduceReuseRecycleREGULATE

DematerializationCutting/decreasing a product’s size

Recycling vs. Downcycling

“Just because a material is recycled does not automatically make it ecologically benign, especially

if it was not designed specifically for recycling.”


• Lost value and lost materials• Increase contamination of the biosphere• Cost

How Green is that Chainsaw?

“Most of what you see in the green movement is voodoo marketing . . . If they say their product makes the sky

bluer and the grass greener, that’s just not good enough.”

-Ron Jarvis

Green = new and improved???Greenwash

Ecological Footprint

Measures human demand on nature. It compares human consumption of natural resources with Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate them.

“Just because a material is recycled does not automatically make it ecologically benign, especially if it was not designed specifically for recycling. Blindly adopting superficial environmental approaches without fully understanding their effects can be no better-and perhaps even worse-than doing nothing.”


Humans vs. Ants

• Safely & effectively handle waste

• Grow & harvest their own food while nurturing the ecosystem

• Construct houses, farms, dumps, cemeteries, living quarters, & food-storage facilities that can be truly recycled

• Create disinfectants & medicines that are healthy, safe, & biodegradable

• Maintain soil health for the entire planet

What about Eco-Effectiveness?

•Thousands of blossoms•Fruit for birds, humans, & other animals•Enriched soil with blossoms and fruit•Goal is for one pit to grow another tree


What about Eco-Effectiveness?

“Building buildings that celebrate natural

pleasures: sun, light, air, nature, even food, in order to enhance the lives of the people who work

there.”-McDonough & Braungart

BiophiliaPeople’s love of the outdoors

Eco-Efficiency vs. Eco-Effectiveness

“But you might start to envision the difference between eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness as the difference between an airless, fluorescent-lit gray cubicle and a sunlit area full of fresh air, natural views, and pleasant places to

work, eat, and converse.”-McDonough & Braungart

BiophiliaPeople’s love of the outdoors

Just Imagine

• Buildings that, like trees, produce more energy than they consume and purify their own waste water

• Factories that produce effluents that are drinking water

• Products that, when their useful life is over, can decompose and become food for plants and animals as well as nutrients for the soil.

• Products that can return to industrial cycles to supply high-quality raw materials for new products

• Transportation that improves the quality of life while delivering goods and services

A world of abundance, not one of limits, pollution, and waste

“Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to

meet their own needs”

WORK/LIFE balance

Sustainable Living

Sustainable Living (Foods)

Local FoodsFarmer’s Market (near Walmart on Opelika Rd.)

Weekly Market (every Thursday from April-August on campus)

Bruno’s (local produce)

Organic FoodsUSDA Organic Label

CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)Fair Trade

Fair Trade Certified Label

Sustainable Living (Foods)

CSA’s in Alabama

Freegans

Someone who is trying to escape the economic

system and trying to cancel out the exchange of money for something they can get

for free.

Freegans

Freegans

www.freecycle.org

www.craigslist.com

Sustainable Living (Products)

Local ProductsArtisan market

Local vs. Chain StoresBuild local economies

Energy Efficient ProductsEnergy Star Label

Compact Fluorescent Light BulbsFair Trade

Fair Trade Certified LabelProducts with stories

Sustainable Living (Products)

Micro Loans

Documents

Product Design, Lifecycle, Waste, & The Environment Global Consumer Culture