Product Design, Lifecycle, Waste, & The Environment

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

2. Announcements • Attendance • Cradle to Cradle & Geez Magazine • L&OT EC must be completed by Monday, March 30, 2009

3. Product Design

4. Product Development Models LaBat & Sokolowski (1999) Define the Problem & Research Creative Exploration “inspired guesswork” Implementation Changes that can be made in a current system More drastic changes

5. Product Development Models Industrial Design Archer (1985) Executive Phase Analytical Phase Creative Phase Target Consumer (profile, needs, desires) Cultural Context (mediator) Design Criteria (Functional, Expressive, Aesthetic)

6. Product Development Models Apparel Design Lamb & Kallal (1992) Problem Recognition (generator of process) Preliminary Ideas (brainstorming) Design Refinement (choose the good ideas) Prototype Development Evaluate (Function, Expression, Aesthetic) Implement Design

7. Product Lifecycle Natural Resources & Technical Nutrients Manufacturing Retail Use Trash The succession of stages a product goes through

8. Product Lifecycle Natural Resources & Technical Nutrients Manufacturing Retail Use Trash The succession of stages a product goes through

9. Product Lifecycle Natural Resources & Technical Nutrients Manufacturing Retail Use Trash The succession of stages a product goes through

10. 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

11. Cradle to Cradle General Timeline Industrial Revolution World Wars Cold War Globalization

12. Motto of Industrial Revolution “If brute force doesn’t work, you’re not using enough of it.”

13. Cradle to Grave? Model for Product Development Natural Resources Manufacturing Retail Use Trash Built-in Obsolescence “Away” doesn’t exist Does it ever go away?

14. Design Paradigm General Timeline Industrial Revolution World Wars Cold War 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”

15. Cradle to Grave? Model for Product Development Natural Resources Manufacturing Retail Use Trash “Built-in Obsolescence” DOWNCYCLING Design without further use in mind and thus only postponing journey to the landfill Does it ever go away?

16. What happens after the decline? Waste Landfill Recycling Down-cycling?

17. Cradle to Grave? “Away” doesn’t exist

18. Cradle to Cradle Model for Product Development Natural Resources & Technical Nutrients Manufacturing Retail Use Trash “Away” doesn’t exist TRUE RECYCLING “a product that can be broken down and circulated infinitely in industrial cycles”

19. Rethinking Product Design Products Plus as 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 tyranny Our tyranny over future generations through the effects of our actions today License to harm A permit issued by a government to an industry so that it may dispense sickness, destruction, and death at an “acceptable” rate

20. Rethinking Product Design products plus as 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.

21. Rethinking Product Design Intergenerational remote tyranny Our tyranny over future generations through the effects of our actions today

22. Is being “less bad” enough? Reduce Avoid Minimize Sustain Limit Halt

23. 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

24. Eco-efficiency • Doing more with less • Adding more value to a good or service while using fewer resources and releasing less pollution

25. 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

26. 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

27. 4 R’s Reduce Reuse Recycle REGULATE Dematerialization Cutting/decreasing a product’s size

28. 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.” • -McDonough & Braungart • Lost value and lost materials • Increase contamination of the biosphere • Cost

29. 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

30. 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.” -McDonough & Braungart

31. 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

32. 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 • -McDonough & Braungart

33. What about Eco-Effectiveness? “Building buildings that celebrate natural pleasures: sun, light, air, nature, even food, in order toenhance the livesof the people who work there.” -McDonough & Braungart Biophilia People’s love of the outdoors

34. 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 Biophilia People’s love of the outdoors

35. 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

36. Sustainable Living • “Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” • WORK/LIFE balance

37. Sustainable Living (Foods)

38. Sustainable Living (Foods) Local Foods Farmer’s Market (near Walmart on Opelika Rd.) Weekly Market (every Thursday from April-August on campus) Bruno’s (local produce) Organic Foods USDA Organic Label CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Fair Trade Fair Trade Certified Label

39. CSA’s in Alabama

40. 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.

41. Freegans

42. Freegans www.freecycle.org www.craigslist.com

43. Sustainable Living (Products)

44. Sustainable Living (Products) Local Products Artisan market Local vs. Chain Stores Build local economies Energy Efficient Products Energy Star Label Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs Fair Trade Fair Trade Certified Label Products with stories

45. Micro Loans