When you are following my blog for a while you know that design for disassembly is a returning topic in my articles. But are you already doing it yourself? Are you designing products that are easy to assembly and disassemble in order to make recycling or biodegradation possible?
I am curious, if you had to answer the previous question with “no”, how come?
What makes it difficult for you to design for disassembly?
Why design for disassembly?
This is one way to go from eco-efficiency to eco-effectivity. When you are using less materials or less energy your process becomes more efficient. But in the end you still create waste because materials are mostly fused together and as a result are neither easily recyclable nor biodegradable anymore. Waste is a word we should remove from our vocabulary.
"Get "Out of sight" out of mind
You don't have a garbage can. You have a nutrient rest stop. [...] Get greedy about your garbage. Now that the world has started down the patch of upcycling, plenty of companies covet what you put in the trashcan every day. You can value it too. Instead of asking yourself, "How do I get rid of this?" ask, "How much money could I get for this? Who could enjoy the benefits of these great nutrients? My city, my neighborhood, my favorite nonprofit?" Next time you want to use the word "waste", bit your tongue. Worms consume food and, through the system of their bodies, produce richer nutrients. You, through the system of your intelligence, can create richer nutrients too." [1]
What makes it difficult for you to design for disassembly?
Why design for disassembly?
This is one way to go from eco-efficiency to eco-effectivity. When you are using less materials or less energy your process becomes more efficient. But in the end you still create waste because materials are mostly fused together and as a result are neither easily recyclable nor biodegradable anymore. Waste is a word we should remove from our vocabulary.
"Get "Out of sight" out of mind
You don't have a garbage can. You have a nutrient rest stop. [...] Get greedy about your garbage. Now that the world has started down the patch of upcycling, plenty of companies covet what you put in the trashcan every day. You can value it too. Instead of asking yourself, "How do I get rid of this?" ask, "How much money could I get for this? Who could enjoy the benefits of these great nutrients? My city, my neighborhood, my favorite nonprofit?" Next time you want to use the word "waste", bit your tongue. Worms consume food and, through the system of their bodies, produce richer nutrients. You, through the system of your intelligence, can create richer nutrients too." [1]
 | What’s next? As a designer you can even go a step further then your personal life as described above. You are the person that creates those new products! With your creativity you have so much possibilities! It is a design challenge and are you up for this challenge? "What will happen next to the shirt I design today? What is next for this book? We want you to think of every component of your design as being borrowed. It will be returned one day to the biosphere or techno sphere. It is your role to return it in as good a condition as you found it, as a good neighbor would. [...] You have that chemical or heavy metal for a reuse period, and then it moves on to another product without tainting the biosphere or techno sphere. Design for your particular reuse period, always with its next reuse and its next reuse and its next reuse in mind." [2] This could also mean it becomes a nutrient for the earth again in the biosphere. |
Product life or life cycle...
Terms I used to use myself as well but after reading the following I am getting rid of this habit. Product life or life cycle refers to "How long a product is used by the customer. But the term confers a kind of superiority on the product that it doesn't deserve. The technical product is not "alive"; it is inert. It also suggests that the product will die and go away and never bother us again. But technical products don't die and vanish. This is the problem and the opportunity. Products stay on and on and on. Maybe as toxins in a dump. Or a plastic bottle cap bobbling in the ocean. We need to get away from thinking of these objects as mutable or we won't consider their endless reuse. They are technical nutrients. We can use them over and over. We can design them to be part of a Materials bank and lease the steel and rubber in a washing machine, for example, until the times comes to use them for something else. Conversely, there are such things as people, and they are alive. Companies talk about human resources departments, as if people were just commodities owned by the company, goods to be used. No. We are people."[3]
Terms I used to use myself as well but after reading the following I am getting rid of this habit. Product life or life cycle refers to "How long a product is used by the customer. But the term confers a kind of superiority on the product that it doesn't deserve. The technical product is not "alive"; it is inert. It also suggests that the product will die and go away and never bother us again. But technical products don't die and vanish. This is the problem and the opportunity. Products stay on and on and on. Maybe as toxins in a dump. Or a plastic bottle cap bobbling in the ocean. We need to get away from thinking of these objects as mutable or we won't consider their endless reuse. They are technical nutrients. We can use them over and over. We can design them to be part of a Materials bank and lease the steel and rubber in a washing machine, for example, until the times comes to use them for something else. Conversely, there are such things as people, and they are alive. Companies talk about human resources departments, as if people were just commodities owned by the company, goods to be used. No. We are people."[3]
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I would like to add that in the future I can imagine products DO live, grow and change with you, because humans are now experimenting with fungus, algae and growing meat in petri dishes. But then again it is important that they are biodegradable or designed for disassembly so the non-biodegradable parts can be recycled.
Materials are here to stay; we borrow them from nature and each other. What you borrow you have to give back one day. Therefore I would like to encourage you to design for disassembly.
Materials are here to stay; we borrow them from nature and each other. What you borrow you have to give back one day. Therefore I would like to encourage you to design for disassembly.
All the pictures are from the project Algaemy from Blond & Bieber, photographers Lukas Olfe and Zoya Bassi, http://blondandbieber.com
Essi Johanna Glomb:" The Algaemy inks contains microalgae as color pigments. They are used together with certain binders, which do not contain metal or similar additives, as strong chemicals destroy the color effect of microalgae (which is a living organism). Using microalgae as color pigments we are able to avoid the toxic color pigments that are used in the industry. We are able to grow the microalgae ourselves or use microalgae from lakes (which is in the end a product of the climate change and CO2 production)."
[1] The upcycle: Beyond sustainability - designing for abundance, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, 2013, page 212
[2][3] The upcycle: Beyond sustainability - designing for abundance, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, 2013, page 213
Essi Johanna Glomb:" The Algaemy inks contains microalgae as color pigments. They are used together with certain binders, which do not contain metal or similar additives, as strong chemicals destroy the color effect of microalgae (which is a living organism). Using microalgae as color pigments we are able to avoid the toxic color pigments that are used in the industry. We are able to grow the microalgae ourselves or use microalgae from lakes (which is in the end a product of the climate change and CO2 production)."
[1] The upcycle: Beyond sustainability - designing for abundance, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, 2013, page 212
[2][3] The upcycle: Beyond sustainability - designing for abundance, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, 2013, page 213
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