WEEK 11: Lecture Reflection
Week 11: Lecture Reflection - George Thalassoudis
Zero Waste - designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, conserve and recover all resources and not burn or bury anything
- while it's not common case to burn waste in Australia, upon travelling I noticed that the Japanese have a complex waste disposal system - they have EIGHT disposal options! One of the options offered is "combustibles" - rubbish for burning. While the Japanese are conscious of the space waste disposal occupies, the burning of their waste is pollutes the atmosphere
Post-Cautionary thinking involves the conceptual reverse engineering of products.
- what this means in the context of sustainable practice is considering how impact of the final product during the design process. As designers we can navigate problems of sustainable practice if we consider the impact of our design materials early, i.e. starting with ideas to use sustainably sourced or biodegradable materials BEFORE progressing with the design process
Idiocracy, 2006
<http://imgur.com/ErASW>
The comment Robert Crocker made about the "invisibility" of waste reminded me of a poignant image from the satirical comedy Idiocracy. The film is a cautionary tale set 500 years into the future. The writers have heavily considered our waste trend as the characters in the film live amongst waste heaps - the "invisibility" of our waste may not be permanent..
Zero waste seeks to achieve a cyclical flow of resources and energy, aiming to eliminate the linear flow of the production to waste.
- considerations about materials reuse and reapplication - post-cautionary thinking required for the cycle to operate
Crocker also highlighted how recycling is often just reuse. Disposable culture started to develop toward the latter half of the 19th century, but prior to that it was common to repair instead of replace items that were damaged. It is often now the case that buying new is cheaper than repairing - perhaps government initiatives could look to offer incentives to the repeated reuse of items, particularly electronics, to undermine the consumerist convenience of this ever-growing disposable culture.
Zero Waste and Sustainability
- while it's not common case to burn waste in Australia, upon travelling I noticed that the Japanese have a complex waste disposal system - they have EIGHT disposal options! One of the options offered is "combustibles" - rubbish for burning. While the Japanese are conscious of the space waste disposal occupies, the burning of their waste is pollutes the atmosphere
Japanese recycling and disposal bins
<https://lazrcat.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/japanese-recycling.jpeg>Post-Cautionary thinking involves the conceptual reverse engineering of products.
- what this means in the context of sustainable practice is considering how impact of the final product during the design process. As designers we can navigate problems of sustainable practice if we consider the impact of our design materials early, i.e. starting with ideas to use sustainably sourced or biodegradable materials BEFORE progressing with the design process
<http://imgur.com/ErASW>
The comment Robert Crocker made about the "invisibility" of waste reminded me of a poignant image from the satirical comedy Idiocracy. The film is a cautionary tale set 500 years into the future. The writers have heavily considered our waste trend as the characters in the film live amongst waste heaps - the "invisibility" of our waste may not be permanent..
Zero waste seeks to achieve a cyclical flow of resources and energy, aiming to eliminate the linear flow of the production to waste.
- considerations about materials reuse and reapplication - post-cautionary thinking required for the cycle to operate
Crocker also highlighted how recycling is often just reuse. Disposable culture started to develop toward the latter half of the 19th century, but prior to that it was common to repair instead of replace items that were damaged. It is often now the case that buying new is cheaper than repairing - perhaps government initiatives could look to offer incentives to the repeated reuse of items, particularly electronics, to undermine the consumerist convenience of this ever-growing disposable culture.
The key to all of this seems to me to be two things: first to disconnect all of this from consumerism - which means constantly asking whether we are just consumers feeding "the market". The second, is to start at home on small-scale behaviour change, which will eventually translate into all areas of living.
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