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