Claudia's ides

Nowadays, Electronics turns to be a part of our lives.We become to have more willing to spend increasingly times on them such as to watch TV programs after finishing dinner ,to surf on the Internet before going to sleep.In the other words, our lives become partially relying on these electronics. However, as a consequence of largely depending on electronics, E-waste problem turns to be more and more serious.


E-waste ,mentioned in the video of "The story of Electronics" ,which as a serious of problems is not only coming from the product line but also from the recycling process. In the product line, company owners care about nothing rather than rising fortune as soon as possible. In recycling process, actually, it is not really recycled but to land filled or to send them to the developing country taking the valuable parts then burning it.More, unfortunately, a key feature though the product whole life cycle is toxics.People are adding the toxics when they creating a new product which is using the inappropriate material(not that environment friendly)and manufactory process.


In addition, the updating products reminds me of a movie named “The Onion movie” .In that movie,the producer exaggerates how fast the micro software is updating its market. After the character paying for his merchandise, suddenly, he realize that the next version already comes out. As the development of the new product,repairing the old stuffs comes out as a problem which is worth observing and noticing. Similar as shown in the video, I went to a repair shop for fixing my phone. Compared with buying a new phone, it costs more on repairing it. The reason of high repairing fee I have been told is that the factory is not manufactured this screen any longer. So, I am thinking this as a design opportunity which is related to how to update a new technology and fit to the old stuff.Once considing and designing an individual product in a series, the fit would not be a problem. But I am still wondering if people can accept changing the parts rather than buying a new one especially when they can afford a new one.


Thinking back to my experience, the reason that I insist on repairing the phone even it cost me more is the memory. The meaning of the phone itself is more than single product to me of which it is carrying some unique memories for me. Instead of making a purchase; I choose to repair so that it prevents creating an E-waste at the same time. And If every consumer has the same decision as me, it would be less E-waste in the plant. But how can designers lead users to make this sort of decision? We can design the product which has more personal connection with the user. As long as they start to use the products, this sense of feeling would be more and more strong.

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No matter what the products are,in the end of their lives,they are going to the same destination:throwing away in trash bins.And after then,some of them are going to be recycled especially as paper,plastic,glass etc.

Before watching this video,there is no reason I can believe that a bunches of products actually come from recycling.I thought that recycled products have less quality.Even knew the process of manufacture,I thought the material made the product is all come from raw material.I am surprised when they say the tissue paper and toliet paper in fact containing parts of recycling paper.

As shown on these videos,recycling process seems like kind of rebirth.Normally,at first, it is collected material by partition of particular material from waste steam.After then,going though different machines,the waste turns to countless pellet or muddy stuff.Next, they shape back into a new product.

In the segments of recycling aluminium, I have been amazed at the energy cost of AL sheet.Compared with making other products, it only required 1/20 of energy!!Of which means the energy could be saved in abundance if manufacture hundreds of million of aluminium sheet product.As a designer, this is an exceptional opportunity.More than saving power,it also saves money for factories with less consumption cost of manufacture if we design with these sheet materials.So I am thinking I might need to pay more attention on the product with sheet material.

Based on what i watched,I am thinking there might have two suggestions of how can designers contribute to the solutions rather than problems.

On the one hand,our design should be really meaningful .As i saw from a design book,it is said the purpose of this subject, industrial design, is to create most efficient solutions for solving problems.Then,I start thinking that as a fabulous design itself,it could be time-saving and energy-saving at the same time when customers spend time on using it.It might can considered as use of saving as well.For instance, the invention of the airplane.By taking plane ,people could save several years to travel around the world. As a result,users can benefit a lot from the great design itself of which they have become more willing to use.

Moreover,on the other hand, making things with less power cost ,less material use is part of our job which means this might be more than responsibility we should shoulder.We need to be more eco-concerned paying more attention on how to protect our plant.I guess we can not expected every customer use a product until its' life end especially they are all facing with the ever-changing fashion every day.What we could do is to design a product with the characteristic of long-life-time, environment-friendly even energy-saving in the process of making as well as recycling.

In addition,I talked with one of my friends who is a second-year environment engneering student .Last year,she went to the Chullora waste and recycling centre which is located on west Sydney.As what she heard, they have two main problems when doing recycle.One is nappy and another one is radio tape.The first one is some of people are thinking that nappy can be recycled no matter used or not.So they throw them into yellow bins and it is awful when people spending hours stand there to take these nappys from tray.The second problem comes from radio tape.The tape itself always get stuck in the waste steam.Unfortunately,I guess we can did less for the first problem.But we might can design some new technique or a machine to pick those tapes before it squashed into a cube for transport.