Designing with Green Intention

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done with that water bottle

no problem go ahead and toss it in the

recycling bin and hope it doesn’t end up

in the landfills

we as consumers can do everything in our

power to shop at thrift stores and buy

second hand

to compost our food scraps at home or

even eliminate single-use plastics

and try to live zero waste but what

about complex systems

like phones cars and planes there’s very

little that you and i can do

in order to ensure that each material

and each part is handled responsibly

this is up to government regulation and

companies to ensure this

an alarming 10 to 11 million vehicles

reach their end of life every single

year and while the average individual

understands the complexities involved

with developing and designing something

like a car

most don’t consider the difficulties

especially as it relates to recycling

to combat this it’s time we start

understanding

the challenges that these systems are

imposing on us and design with green

intention

but what is green intention it’s the

idea of designing something with the

intent to recycle it

now let’s take a step back and draw some

inspiration from nature

when an organism reaches its end of life

nature has a plan on how to recycle it

decomposers can recycle dead animal and

plant matter

into carbon and nitrogen which gets

released into the soil

air and water as nutrients for new

plants and animals

this helps keep the flow of resources

available in the environment

similarly we need to have a plan for

when our products reach their end of

life

now let’s take a look at the life cycle

of product

first raw materials are mined and

harvested

directly from the earth they then go

through some sort of processing

or manufacturing and then the product be

it a car

phone plane or electronic the product

hits the market

there are also social and marketing

pressures associated with the lifecycle

of a product

like for example you might have a phone

that’s totally functional but decide to

toss it because it’s no longer

fashionable or current it’s up to the

user to determine how long

the lifetime of the product will be

another example is if you have a car

and you use it for 20 years and all of a

sudden you want a new one or you totaled

it then this

and this these are car graveyards and

they’re actually common throughout the

entire world

now raise your hand if you want to be

the person taking care of this mess

yeah me either and to make it even more

difficult

there are no instructions there are a

bunch of materials mixed into what looks

like one part

the parts are hard to remove from one

another and there is a coating of paint

all over the car which is practically

impossible to recover to top it off

there are flaming batteries in there

that will explode on you

if mishandled

this is footage of someone making a tiny

puncture in a phone’s lithium ion

battery pouch

as you can see it burst into flames

almost immediately

and releases a toxic odor when the

lithium from the battery reacts with

moisture and oxygen in the air

in a matter of seconds this tiny device

that everybody has in their back pocket

can do as much damage as a hand grenade

in an electric car there are around 7

000

of these lithium-ion batteries now just

try to imagine the damage

that could occur if a recycler goes into

work and accidentally mishandles

a charged car battery and multiply it

again to look like this

it feels impossible right

i have worked as a recycling innovation

engineer at a tech company

i have hands-on experience dismantling

recycling and disassembling electronics

i know what it is like to be in charge

of a mess like this

from that experience i can tell you that

it’s going to take time

maybe years for r d to figure out how to

recycle the device

and once they do it will take it will

cost a lot of money

to pay for the associated operating

labor and to implement the disassembly

device

and after all this time money and effort

it will pull more resources from our

environment

it’s like we’re working backwards it’s a

never-ending cycle if you begin to think

about how to recycle a recycling device

it’s time we start to challenge the

status quo and design with green

intention

we are the future of design architecture

engineering

retail there might be future policy

makers or educators in this room

who can and should build this notion

into their curriculum

it is imperative that we change our

thinking and our

intention to understand these concepts

for our planet’s greater good

so before diving into the details of

product design let me tell you a bit

more about recycling

first at its core recycling depends upon

ease of disassembly

think about it the easier it is to take

something apart the faster it is to

determine the materials within it

and send it to its respective downstream

recycler like for example

metal will get sent to a smelter whereas

glass gets crushed

melted and reformed currently designers

and recyclers don’t work together once

the product reaches its end of life

that’s when the recycler has to figure

out how to take care of it

this is why designers recyclers and

engineers should collaborate from the

start of product design

this is beneficial from both a

sustainability and business perspective

that being said they should work

together to build disassembly

instructions into a manual

when the product is first released to

avoid confusion

when the time comes for it to be

recycled

next source from recycled materials

don’t rely on taking from the earth

every time that you need something

adidas has been making these ocean

plastic shoes

think about it ocean plastic has

negative value

and they are recovering it and selling

it to you for over a hundred dollars

create a take back system like apple

trading

apple pays their users a small fee in

exchange for old devices so that they

are the ones responsible

for covering and reusing the precious

materials within the device

discourage the production and

consumption of single-use

products and plastics like plastic bags

plastic

water bottles even paper towels if these

items take 450 years to decompose

why are they only being used once it

doesn’t make any sense

packaging as it relates to products and

food is highly wasteful and this is a

problem that should have been taken care

of yesterday

a more realistic use of single-use

devices is within the medical field

where equipment needs to be sterilized

prior to a procedure or surgery

to avoid contamination like syringes and

pipettes and other medical devices

this is a good example of where

innovation and proper waste management

is necessary rather than halting

production altogether

so these are a few ideas that scratch

the surface of recycling

let’s look at more about what makes a

product of a good product

first durability durability has to do

with how it’s made

the materials within it and its

structural integrity

next is aesthetics aesthetics has to do

with how it looks

how it how the impression is the colors

the paints

and the overall feel and finally if it’s

an electronic it must have a power

source

like a battery a charging cable or fuel

so how can we implement green design and

green attention

into these three elements that make a

good product first

aesthetics avoid using contaminants use

bioswords paints and glues where you can

also avoid using fasteners and screws

the less materials there are the better

don’t compromise on the look of the

product

but keep these ideas in mind while

designing

next looking at durability don’t mix

materials

for example an everyday hanger could be

made from wood

and metal or boxed water which is made

from paper

and plastic these items require an extra

separation step when the time comes for

recycling

instead just design with one material in

mind like

a fully plastic or fully wooden hanger

or fully aluminum can

on a larger scale something like a car

door will go through a shrimp and

sortation

and once the pieces are shredded all the

materials will be thoroughly mixed

together

and sortation is a lengthy sequential

process that includes

separations like vibration density

magnetic

even stainless steel separation and

these often yield low purity results

it’s better if we reduce the amount of

materials that we have to begin with

so that these output batches will be

more pure and better for reusability

and finally looking at power electronics

contain

precious metals like gold silver

platinum and even copper and also rare

earth magnets

it is imperative for economics that

these are the easiest to remove

since they’re the hardest ones to mine

from the earth and the most expensive

ones

reusing and recovering these precious

metals properly is a huge step in the

right direction

and while precious metals occur in small

quantities

they can really add up all 5 000

of the 2020 japan summer olympic medals

were made from recovered precious metals

from recycled electronics

that’s 6.21 million

phones diverted from the landfills and

their precious metals all recovered

these ideas scratched the surface but

the future of our products and our

planet is in our hands

and while these are great first steps

for short term

and small scale change we need something

that disrupts and disregards the status

quo

for true exponential long-term change

fields like creative biomimicry or soft

robotics

even creative reuse projects like those

japan olympic medals

and the adidas plastic shoes and of

course

reducing the amount of flammable and

toxic chemicals

used in our power sources

now i mentioned earlier that nature has

a plan for when an organism dies and

similarly we need to have a plan for

when our

when our products reach their end of

life

but what if we take that a step further

and look at how nature creates in the

first place

everything in nature is grown whereas

everything that is man-made is assembled

part by part or brick by brick neri

oxman from the mit

media lab has taken this notion to the

next level

at the crossroads of environmental

biology

art architecture and computational

design

she has been creating structures made of

one single material

and one single part she can control

parameters of her structures like

movement

mobility structural integrity

and rigidity all by simply manipulating

its material properties

this is an image of nary oxman’s silk

dome

it covers a hundred square feet and was

grown

he were grown by 6 000 live silkworms

compare this to a man-made dome which is

made up of a bunch of screws fasteners

and hundreds of industrial metal rods

all of oxman’s creations are sourced

from nature

and more importantly they’re designed

for decay hear that

designed for decay meaning they return

straight back to nature when the time

comes for them to be recycled

her research is the epitome of designing

with green attention

now another noteworthy field is soft

robotics

soft robots mimic the way living

organisms move and adapt to their

environment

this is footage of a harvard designed

octopus-inspired robot

it uses microfluidic movements to move

compared to a typical robot which would

use

rigid mechanical movements in the case

of a robot’s end effector

and an end effector is the claw or the

hand at the end of a robotic arm

soft robots are made up of less

materials less fasteners and less screws

and this is in line with the principles

of designing with green intention

compared to a typical robotic claw or

hand which would be made up of

several parts screws and fasteners

i want to make it clear that green

design and green intention should not be

seen as a burden

or a chore that slows down progress but

rather something that facilitates it

and allows admin advancements in a more

sustainable way

finally looking at power it is so

important that we eliminate the use of

toxic and flammable chemicals

companies like aminox have developed

this lithium-ion battery that you could

shoot a bullet through with no flaming

reaction from the battery

this is already worlds better for the

recycler knowing that they can go into

work without the worry of a battery

exploding on them

at the crossroads of creative biomimicry

soft robotics and safety power research

lies the green design revolution well

this might be

the greatest engineering challenge of

our time

creativity and technology are moving in

a direction

where we can and should reverse the

damage done to our planet

let’s make car graveyards and flaming

batteries

and single-use products a thing of the

past

the bulk of environmental damage is done

by large corporations

and it’s unfair to assume that bringing

a used reusable bag to the grocery store

is going to solve this problem

although it is a necessary step

it will take the union between

businesses and creative engineers and

decision makers

to have the greatest impact and while we

do have some personal stakes in this

it as i mentioned earlier it requires a

major disruption of the status quo

one day you might be the next person

designing the electric car

or writing environmental policy but

until then

you can still affect positive change you

can choose to vote with your dollar

and spend on products that were made

with the end of life in mind

learn how to dispose and recycle your

electronics and batteries correctly

and more importantly push your companies

to give you clear instructions on how to

do so

and finally get educated on what you can

do within your field

this is a problem that we should be

taking on so that our planet doesn’t

have to

and with that i hope you start living

with green

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intention