Giving a Packaging a New Life and How Its Made: Packaging

Giving a Packaging a New Life and How Its Made: Packaging videos have made me to wonder how manufacturing processes are done starting the year 2000. From observing all the used materials and products in the factory, it forces me to consider the huge amount of packaging materials that need to be recycled and discarded at the same time.

The management process of the recycling plant is interesting because the plant has the ability to collect waste products and separate them for recycling in a very efficient and orderly way. I am amazed how the machines in the factory could separate different types of plastics by infra-red, including the category of mixed plastics. At the same time, food wastes and chemicals are extracted.

I find that Germany is a sustainable and forward thinking nation. The German government, manufacturers and companies promote and create the awareness of the importance of sustainability. Example, they save energy by recycling products rather than creating new products from newly extracted raw materials in order to decrease the energy, money and transportation needed to transport raw materials. Another point that I would like to add is that governments should find solutions to solve land fill problems in long term as land filling would not be a permanent solution as waste products could release harmful substances to the air and use a lot of land space.

Industrial designers should watch these videos because it could help them to realise that it is not just about creating energy efficient, advanced and economical manufacturing processes of recycling, it is also about designing products that is environmentally driven but the core value of design is still remained human centered. Industrial designers could learn how their new designs could help to decrease energy needed for manufacturing processes and transportation and also space saving issues for storing the packaging products.

After watching this video, I felt that there is a greater responsibility for me to do research on new and green materials, or abundant waste of green materials that are often overlooked and ignored so that recycling processes can be made easier and more energy efficient. I also found that sustainable design and technology will greatly impact the society socially and our earth through the good old 3 Rs: Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. It is always beneficial and important for us to be competitive as our era will be environmentally driven in a innovative way. In the future, more recycling programs will be implemented and technology will improve drastically overtime. Therefore, it is our duty to design products that are environmentally conscious and human centered with the influences of the surrounding external factors.