Green Gifting Final Comments

1. Alyanna  Agda
2. Matt Holihan
3. Alan Jackson
4. Dora Ferenczi
5. Sunprit Singh

Project 2: Green Gifting

Video Blog - Ideas That Changed The World: Consumerism

Consumerism is at the heart of today's modern economy, in today's society we are under the belief that the more we consume the better our lives will be and it is this ideology which makes shopping our most popular past time. 

One of our major problems in today's society is that many of us are unaware of the cost our consumer products have on the environment. For example, certain products shipped in from overseas put a far greater strain on the environment when compared to products that are made and manufactured locally and greenhouse gases are higher now then at anytime in the last 650 thousand years. The idea of consumerism all started as a survival instinct, a person's need to acquire more then their basic needs and as civilisation got bigger and stronger, it became respectable to consume and to flaunt's one consumption of materialistic products. A man by the name of Adam Smith created a vehicle that would drive the world's economy into the future by encouraging economic growth by unleashing the individual into the materialistic world. He stated that the 'pursuit of luxury worked as an economic driver that would make everybody richer, capitalism was born and consumerism would be at the heart of it.'

What we need to realise now is that in today's society we as consumers are targeted everyday by people trying to sell us products which claim to improve the quality of our life, when really we need to ask ourselves what is the price others are paying for those products and how will it eventually affect our future. In today's market, it's not about how badly you need something but rather how that one product can change your life. Manufacturers have realised the importance of targeting certain aspects of the human mind in order to increase the amount you buy and in doing so they have created a massive problem in today's society. The only way to fix this problem is to make consumerism work better for us and our planet. This can be done in a variety of different ways, both as an individual and as a community and it has already started. Technology already exists, which can radically change our lifestyle and in effect decrease our impact on the environment, the only problem is convincing people to make use of these technologies. People who are uninformed are still under the conclusion that the world can continue to survive even if we continue to grow in population, however climate change is a real problem and although it may not effect you directly just yet it soon will affect everyone in the nearby future if changes are not made to the way we think and act.

Peer Review's

Peer Comments
1. Paris Cockinos
2. Katherine Alicja Ewa Kawecki 
3. Anuj Dhawan
4. Dora Ferenczi
5. Alexander Morris

Project One: Socially Responsible Packaging

Peer Comments (27/3/13)

Peer One: Reza Sazesh

Seeing as though my model was still yet to be made, Reza commented on how I was actually going to fit the tablets into my product packaging and the way in which my tablets could be distributed in a fast and efficient matter. This was a major problem in my design and I had yet to find a solution for it.

Peer Two: Anthea Friend

The size of my product needed to be small and at first I was going to make it completely cylindrical as it would copy the exact size and shape of my tablets. However after talking to a few people I came to an understanding that this doesn't really make a product stand out. Most of the previous products were cylindrical and I wanted to create something new and innovative which would attract customers who are active in the field. After this discussion I decided to change the shape of my product and this is where I came up with a new idea which would create an even more efficient and successful product. The lip of my design, which is where the tablets are dispensed, will be slightly larger then the standard drink bottle neck on the current market. This enables the user to place my product comfortability over the open top of a drink bottle and dispense a tablet into the water bottle without any wastage or hassle.

Tutor: (Simon)

We also talked about the size of my tablets and the function of my product. I had a vague idea of how it would work, but was not sure if I was heading in the right direction. Simon told me to sit down just for a few hours and think of how my product was to be used and in what way. The inner mechanics of my product doesn't need to be absolutely perfect, but it definitely needed some refinement as I had yet to state how my product would be distributed from its packaging.

What I learnt:

Although there may be a lot of problems and constraints associated with a certain project what I have realised is that there is always a solution one way or another. It may take a while to find, but if you just sit down and think of how you want your product to work and in what way, the solution is a lot easier to find.

Video Reflections

Hey all, i have chosen to provide you with a summary of the movie, 'The 11th Hour' as it sounds quite interesting.

The 11 hour is a documentary that explores the environmental problems that the world has suffered and is in the process of suffering by providing detailed interviews and reports of experts who have researched the possibility of 'climate change' and offer their opinion on what people in our world need to do in order to avert a global disaster. 

One major point they mentioned in this documentary was that even if we stopped and/or reduced our pollution of the planet by using renewable resources, such as solar energy from the sun and other such sustainable energy sources the world's climate will still increase due to our large and unsupportable population. One statement made in this documentary was that the world was a once beautiful place that could contain a population of less than a billion people, but as we grew over time, technology and industry grew with us until nearly most of the world's land mass was taken over. Large corporations are taking advantage of the environment and putting greed and the pursuit of power and money, over the welfare of others. They mistakenly see nature as something that can be exploited without limitations, however, what they need to realise is that we are living in one big eco-system, and if one part of an eco-system fails, then the whole system will collapse. 

What this documentary also addresses is that even though humans have grown to sit on the top of the food chain, we are still a relatively young species and no matter what we do or how we do our reign will inevitable come to an end. As stated 99.99% or all species become extinct, and the damage that we are doing to the world brings us closer to 'the eleventh hour' which is the last possible moment in time we have where we can do something to avert or change our fate of chaos and disaster. We are destroying the world and all life within it, over 50 000 species a year are disappearing from our planet and are becoming extinct. Industrial designers have a duty and an obligation to stand up and say something to the large manufacturers that create an abundance of products which will ultimately end up as waste and pollution. Although everyone has the ability to speak out, designers are the ones who continue to make products which they know are a waste of precious minerals and energy that we do not have. Why design something which will last for a year when for the same amount, you can design something that will last a decade? Designers need to realise that the big companies are out for profit and not for sustainability, they want their money and they don't care how they get it even if they end up destroying the world. Even the amount of money spent on advertising each year (money which some countries don't have and need to borrow) could change the world if it was just put to better use and this video, opens up people's eyes to the atrocities that have been taking place since the industrial revolution. 

People living in clean populated countries like our's believe that everything will be alright, however they do not see how each and everyone of their decisions to buy a certain product has on the environment. So you want to buy a new couch, do you know what went into to making that product? or where the materials that were used to make that product came from? Its questions like these that people don't ask which could change the way we think in society and could put an end to the irreparably damage we are doing to our world. 

This documentary shows us how important the environment is to us. We are connected to nature just as our limbs are connected to us and the unexplained importance of nature will help us unlock the key to our sustainable and clean future. Animals like the spider which can create a material 5x stronger than steel in its abdomen at room temperature is the key to our future. We spend large amounts of money on creating building materials like steel and carbon alloy which pollute our air and soil during the manufacturing process when all we need to do is take a step back and conduct more research in how things occur naturally in our environment without the aid of extreme heats and other terrible chemicals.  Part of the solution to a perfect world is for us as people to live in harmony with nature as opposed to controlling it and with the help of a few leading experts around the world, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Stephen Hawking, James Woolsey and sustainable design experts William McDonough and Bruce Mau we will open the world's eyes to the most important environmental issues facing the earth at this moment.

The world is one large, giant ecosystem which holds some of the most beautiful discoveries man has ever made. What we are doing to our world is not only wrong but completely selfish as we are not the only lives on this planet we are destroying. Our ignorance will be our downfall, and like other great disasters in history, we will not have the benefit of hindsight to fix it, we only get one chance and from what I've seen from today's world leaders total planetary damage will be the only possibility of our future.

Peer Comments (20/3/13)

Peer One: Anthea Friend

As I continued to work on my hydration tablet product, there were a few things that were pointed out to me by my peers that I needed to seriously think about. The first thing was how I was actually going to make it different from the previous products on the market (apart from making it smaller). I decided that the best way to do this was to design a product which improves on the number of processes the human user has to go through in order to use this product. For example, instead of using a screw on cap with my product, I could use a pop up one, which would allow my product to be used one handed.

Peer Two: Sunprit Singh

He commented on the labelling of my product and how I would make it look good. Different colours gave different moods and I wanted to choose the colours which would really make my product stand out.

Tutor: (Simon)

We talked about the function of my product and how the tablets would actually be used in conjunction with the packaging. We also talked about the different types of material, which would make my product  ideal for its size and weight restrictions as well as a few ideas for the labelling. 

What did I learn:

After talking with my tutor and my peers, I learnt that there are a great many things to think about when designing a certain product for a certain group of people. Even though I wanted to target my product to people 'on the go' I still had to think about the other groups of people in society who would want to use my product as the wider the target market the more successful my product would become.

Project 1: Socially Responsible Packaging

The Three concepts which I have presented in studio:

Peer Comments (13-3-2013)

Peer One: Sunprit Singh

Out of my three concepts, only two made it past the first scrutiny. My first aid packaging design was interesting, however he said it didn't necessarily relate specifically to the brief. The second idea I had, which involved redesigning new packaging for hydration tablets, was better suited as I had more experience myself with this issue, due to my own experiences with the product. He recognised that because I had more of a connection with that concept, I should use it to my advantage, as passion in design is something which could help greatly.

Peer Two: Reza Sazesh

Reza was extremely interested in my packaging design for first aid, he thought that the research I had gathered was interesting and he figured that it was a product which could be used by many, if I came up with a design that provided a viable solution to the brief.

Tutor: (Simon)

After I presented all three of my concepts with my research Simon gave me a few interesting things to think about. First off I needed to re-evaluate the materials which one of my concepts were to be made out of. The issue came up of whether products should be made for one time usage only or to be made to last. I realised that I needed to conduct research on other similar products on the market to see whether or not they were successful for being a one use product or a durable one, which lasted for mutiple uses.

What did I learn:

After watching a few other students and tutor's working together on this project, I learnt that the three different levels of design, Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective will play an important role in this project. Most design's I saw addressed the chosen social issue in at least one way, however a successful product needs to address a social issue by breaking through both the physical and emotional barriers of a user. For example, Apple products are designed in such a way that they are instantly recognisable due to their sleek and stylish look. They have created both a product and packaging that truly connects with it's users.

How It's Made

This series of videos explores the different processes of production of packaging and is interesting as the production process for certain plastic products turned out to be completely unexpected. Different processes like injection and blow moulding are used to create plastic bottles, etc… which are used as containers for many different types of products. What is interesting is that there is more then one process used in the production of a single product. For example, with the production of a juice bottle, the granulated plastic combined with less then 10% of recycled granulated plastic is first melted down and then moulded into a small cylindrical shape using injection moulding. The mould dries instantly and is then moved to a second machine which uses blow moulding to expand the cylindrical shape into a bottle nearly 5 times it size, the machine which is shown also churns out a massive 10600 bottles an hour, which shows just how far we have come in the production process.

What is interesting to learn about glass and other manufacturing processes is that everything needs to be timed perfectly. For example, in glass manufacturing, just like plastic, they use melted down glass and blow moulding to form the glass bottles. However, there is a lot of things to do in between a moulded and finished product. What I didn't realise is that like a design process, each individual product is constantly evaluated. Throughout the assembly line, cameras are used to check each individual bottle for cracks and/or bubbles while machines are used to check the size and strength. Fire is also used to warm the glass along the assembly line, due to the fact that if the bottles are cooled to quickly they might crack. Another thing which I have realised is that once these plastic, glass and aluminium bottles are made, they still need to be shipped to certain places in order to be filled. This means that so much energy is being wasted shipping empty glass bottles around to different manufacturers and most likely the reason why we now have wine tetra-pak containers which are able to be delivered in flat packed rolls. I think tetra-pak's are  great idea because they are easy to make and transport, however, if we are thinking of the full life cycle of a product, it would be much harder to recycle a tetra-pak than a glass bottle as it is made up from a combination of different materials and layers.

Most companies when manufacturing new products recycle any scraps that the may have, which is a good thing and are also looking for new ways to reduce the amount of energy a product takes to me manufactured as well as it's impact on the environment. What else i learnt from these video's is that garbage can still be useful even when it's been sent to landfill. The methane gas that is produced from all the rotting garbage underground can be harnessed and used to create energy. With new and emerging technologies, this methane can also be used to create natural gas which in turn could be used to power the very trucks which cart the garbage to and from your house, to the recycling factory and finally to it's final resting place underground.

Giving Packaging A New Life

This series of video's were helpful to watch as they actually provided relevant information on how new technologies involving the recycling of all materials has changed the world we live in. New technologies, such as high resolution and infrared cameras as well as 'smart' computers allows the sorting of recycled materials much easier and efficient. These new technologies provide an important service as they convert most sorted plastics into secondary raw materials. In the 1990's most plastic's were either incinerated or landfilled, but as new technologies have emerged the cost of plastic has nearly halved. In the process, a centrifuge system is used to separate the different materials. Camera's and 'smart' computer's also analysis each individual piece of plastic which has been collected and with short bursts of compressed air, they are able to get rid of anything which does not belong. After the recycling process has finished, high grade re-granulate is formed with the recycled plastic and can be used to manufacture such things as drainage pipes, palettes and even children's toys.

However it is not just plastic that is able to be recycled, in fact, most thing's that are created are recycled due to the fact that companies are under new obligations to find out what impact their product has on the environment through a life-cycle analysis. In Germany, companies have to actually pay more if their product has a greater impact on the environment and therefore, designers have actually began to design using the traditional 'less is more' philosophy. Other materials that are recycled include glass, which due to its composition needs to be separated into different colours. The glass is then melted with soda lime and sand and is then able to be reused.

Magnets are also used in the recycling process with reference to aluminium and tinplate. This system is able to sort out the usable materials from the bad in a relatively efficient manner. After aluminium cans are melted, cast and rolled it was interesting to learn that recycling these cans take up 1/20th of energy required for production when comparing them to new goods produced. In the case of tinplate steel scraps account for 40% of new material required for steel production and can be recycled as many times without any quality losses.

Another interesting recycling process that I found interesting was the process to recycle beverage cartons which are composite packs and made up from materials that have been bonded together. In the recycling process the materials are put into drums of water in order to weaken the chemical composition of the materials. After the aluminium and plastic are separated, they can be used in cement production plants. 

Although these video's did not go into great detail and explain the whole process of the recycling process they still gave a good example of how it all works. I would hope to see more new and emerging technologies come out to reduce the impact of our waste on our environment even more.