Future
Trends
Volume
7 Issue 4
Natural
systems take from their environment, but they also give something
back. The cherry tree drops its blossoms and leaves while it cycles
water and makes oxygen; the ant community redistributes the
nutrients throughout the soil. We can follow their cue to create a
more inspiring engagement, a partnership with nature. We can build
factories whose products and by-products nourish the ecosystem with
biodegradable material and recirculate technical materials instead
of dumping, burning, or burying them.
Cradle
To Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things
William
McDonough & Michael Braungart, p. 156, 2002.
21st
Century Recycling: New Ways Of Designing And Producing
Recycling
is a concept that has become popular during the past decade.
Today, many of us are trying to recycle our plastic and paper
wastes, taking them to the recycling centers at our local high
school parking lots or to designated places by the cities.
Though
we are seeing some product carrying signs that state this product is
made with recycled paper or in some cases plastic, the project of
eliminating waste is far from success. As consumers we do our part
purchasing goods for their services and, at the end of their life
cycle, replacing them with new models. As good consumers we bring
old products to recycling centers thinking that all the useful
materials of these products will be reused. However, rarely is
this the case. Many of the valuable materials in our cars, computers
and TVs are heading directly to landfills where they are wasted
forever.
Cradle-To-Grave
Thinking
Most
of our goods - carpets, televisions, clothing, shoes, computers and
plastic packaging were made from valuable materials that required
effort and expense to extract and make. The cost of producing
these products includes billions of dollars worth of material
assets. Unfortunately, when these things end up in a landfill, their
value is wasted. According to William McDonough & Michael
Braungart, authors of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make
Things, these wastes are the
ultimate products of an industrial system that is designed on a
linear, one-way cradle-to-grave model.
Cradle-to-grave
designs dominate modern manufacturing. According to some accounts
more than 90 percent of materials extracted to make durable goods in
the US become waste. Most of the products are designed to last only
for a certain period of time, to allow the consumer to get rid of
them and buy the new models.
The
problem is this system of production results in gigantic amounts of
waste, puts valuable materials in holes all over the world where
they can not be retrieved, and decimates the ecology by digging up
or cutting down natural resources and then ultimately
burying or burning them. The industrial system is designed to
produce products that are used and owned by one person and that end
up in a graveyard for products and materials at the end of their
life cycles.
Recycling
Versus Downcycling
The
industrial revolution was not planned but it was an economic
revolution, driven by the desire for the acquisition of capital.
Industrialist wanted to make products as efficiently as possible and
to get the greatest volume of goods to the largest number of people.
Early industries relied on a seemingly endless supply of natural
resources. Ore, timber, water, grain, coal and land were the raw
materials for the productions systems that made goods for the
masses, and they still are today.
Today
our understanding of nature has dramatically changed. New studies
indicate that the oceans, the air, the mountains and the plants and
animals that inhabit them are more vulnerable than early innovator
ever imagined. But modern industry still operates according to
paradigm that developed when humans had a very different sense of
the world.
Most
of us do recycle in order to save our planet. However, most of us do
not know that most recycling is actually downcycling; it reduces the
quality of a material over time. When plastics like soda and water
bottles are recycled, for instance, they are mixed with different
plastics to produce a hybrid plastic of lower quality used for
cheaper things such as park benches or speed bumps. Metals are not
escaping this downgrading either. For example, the high quality
steel used in cars is recycled by melting it down with other car
parts, including other metals like copper and also paint and plastic
coating. These materials lower the quality of the steel. It can be
strengthen by adding more high quality steel but will never meet the
standards necessary to be used in the construction of a new car.
Lost
value and lost material are not the only concerns. Downcycling is
also problem when the so called recycled material, including all
other materials such as plastic and paint in recycled steel from a
car can contain harmful chemicals. It gets serious when these
downcycled materials are used in other industries to make household
goods. Materials that were never intended to be used in
products in our homes can end up in our living rooms.
Cradle-To-Cradle
Thinking
The
solution lies in products that are designed with their future life
in mind. This is a relatively new concept that is revolutionizing
the product design and development process. New products are
designed with their product life cycle in mind, knowing that the
product will serve its purpose and at the end of it will be
disposed. So, the new products are designed to satisfy the consumer,
provide value throughout their lifecycle, and at the end get
disassembled and upcycled. All the materials that were used will be
recovered and used in a new product, leaving no waste and preserving
those limited resources.
Electronics
giant Sony is a leader in this movement and has developed a
"Design for Assembly-disassembly Cost-effectiveness (DAC)"
program which is used in the design of all products in order to
promote recyclability and recycling. Sony believes that this new
engineering and product design concept will deliver not only good
citizen image but also lower raw material cost and an improved
bottom-line.
It
appears that this movement is spreading as other companies develop
new approaches. Following in Sony's footsteps, other electronics
companies are creating similar concepts such as Design for Recycling
(DFR) and Design for Disassembly (DFD).
All
this will allow consumers to consume freely without the burden of
the guilt of causing waste. These new upcycling programs should help
those discouraged consumers, mostly in the EU countries, to come
back and consume freely, ultimately helping the economies of the
world to grow.
Cenk
Tolunay
cenktolunay@yahoo.com
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