It's really nice to know all the behind the scenes of 'making' a product. I call it a hidden world of product design; how ugly it can be, the bad and embarrassing story that even designers themselves and consumers do not know about it. It has reminded designers again that it hard to find a product that is designed with the environment in mind and it is always important to think about the environment when designing a product. Enough said about all the causes and effects of the pollution, bad-for health-chemicals produced, deforestation and so on. I think many people have heard enough of these. Let's think and find some solutions on how to solve this problem.
Using renewable energy source is one of the best ways to manufacture sustainable products. I think it's a good way to truly appreciate our god given natural resources by using them and unleash the potential of renewable energy. We can use solar energy cells for producing products such as calculators, watches, mobile phones, vehicles, etc to save energy. Bio fuel is also useful for 'recharging' vehicles and wave power can save electricity but so far, we humans haven't realised their true potential yet. I think it might not be easy to use alternative energy to fully replaced what we are using right now, but i'm sure it will worth every penny.
Besides using renewable energy sources, we should always try to use less materials because it can save cost and uses less energy. Use less materials to design or manufacture a product in a smart way, and at the same time, it will still retain its effective function, beauty and pleasurable to use. It is also important to know whether the user will benefit or not by using the product with the material that we've selected. Products that can multifunction could be very helpful too, in this way we don't have to buy two products instead of one.
After watching the video, I know that it can be impossible to stop everyone in the world to stop throwing their unwanted products away and always have a habit to buy the products that they truly need, not products that they want for self-satisfaction. Therefore, it is wise to use materials that are safe to be disposed and will not release toxic. We need to work hard and do research to find chemicals that are almost toxic free to replace the existing ones and still producing the same kind of performance or function. However, to find a material or chemicals that has the same capability to produce the same functions as the existing one will be a huge mountain to climb. I don't think we have a proper record to list down all the safe chemicals that we could find at the moment. This education is till relatively new to us. We need to make an effort to learn how materials are being harvested, what kind of manufacturing techniques are involved and how resources can be sustainable managed in a complete cycle.
This is definitely easy to say but difficult to practice it. Like what Annie Leonard said, let's not design something that could harm people and the environment.We need to recognize good and bad materials, what's good and what's not, and how it could affect the product itself and the surroundings.
No comments:
Post a Comment