HOW SHOULD WE THINK?

Lee Woodman CCDN 271 Tutor: Kath Foster

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when

we created them” Albert Einstein.

This earth we all live on has finite resources, and as we are all only too well

aware we are using those resources at an alarming rate. The industrialization

of the modern age has seen an exponential rise in consumption of new, better,

faster products, food, services and lifestyles. Our mastery and consequent

dependence on technology has become necessary to maintaining this

consumption. My inquiry will look at the most basic assumption behind these

phenomena; can we rely on technology to reverse this downward spiral into

oblivion of our species? Or, should we stop, and consider the method of

thought needed to extricate ourselves from this dilemma? This essay will

explore different modes of thought that might help us to reverse this trend and

attempt to compare the common elements running through them to give the

reader some direction. It should be mentioned at this point that I want to avoid

any hollow rhetoric about the environment that saturates our vision at the

present. We are in danger of becoming sensitized to the ‘greenwashing’ (put

forward by the product industry predominantly) in order to only profit further

from the environment by appearing to be concerned about it.

Industry globally is growing at tremendous rates, which has implications in all

directions. From the start of human history to the year 1900 the world

produced six billion dollars of output, now the worldwide economy grows by

that amount every two years.1 Technology promised us a lighter, faster way of

doing things, but as John Thackara explains in his book In the Bubble, ‘speed’

costs us greatly and we are also much heavier than ever before.2For example,

we print much more paper than ever before, even though email and electronic

1 Thackara, J. (2005). In the Bubble: Designing in a complex world. Massachusetts:MIT press 2 ibid. p.10.

transactions promised us an end to the paper trail. Many electronic devices

are disposed of after a few years or even months, and computers are one of

the most wasteful devices to manufacture. The amount of waste matter

generated in the production of one laptop is four thousand times greater in

weight than the object itself. And it takes between fifteen and nineteen tons of

energy and material to produce one desktop computer.3 It requires 1.7kg of

high grade materials to produce a single 32mb memory chip,4 and these chips

are being manufactured at ever increasing rates.5We only need to think of the

consumption of these products in our own individual circle to understand this

problem is vast in its scale.

‘Lightness’ is the first term I want to address in context to the amount of

resources we all use and discard in first world countries. Thackara points out

one solution especially when it comes to products or tools and that is to ‘use,

not own’.6 By using without buying we are purchasing a service, not the

product. One example he gives is power tools as the average consumer power

tool is used for ten minutes in its entire life.7 Given that it takes hundreds of

times its own weight to manufacture, it makes no sense to own something like

this.8 All we need is to be able to hire one when we need it. A service based

industry would lighten our footprint argues Thackara and writes; “focus on

services, not on things, and refrain from flooding the world with pointless

devices”.

‘Speed’ is another term that demands attention in technological advances and

I believe it is an important subject in context to our modern life and the

environment. No doubt most of us have heard of the emerging trends that

buck the ‘fast’ slogan; slow design, slow food, and slow cities even. It’s not just

the speed argues Thackara; it’s the continual acceleration that is un-

sustainable.9 As much as we like to arrive at our destination as quickly as

3 Accelerated life, computers, and the environment, NETFUTURE:Tecnology and Human responsibility, no 54, July 30, (1997). Cited in Thackara, p. 11 4 The 1.7kg Microchip:Energy and Material use in the production of semiconductor devices. Environmental Science and Technology, 36, (24). December 2002. Cited in Thackara, p. 10 5 Thackara, p. 11

6 Thackara, p. 18 7 ibid, p. 18 8 ibid, p. 19 9 ibid, p. 30

possible, our speed addiction is not cheap. For example, the average car uses

five litres of fuel at eighty kilometres per hour, but needs four times that

amount to go only twice as fast. 10Thackara quotes an environmentalist named

Wolfgang Sachs saying; “the more speed outdoes natural time scales, the

more environmental resources have to be extended. Gains in eco-efficiency

will never cancel out the basic law which governs the physics of speed”.11 Our

lives are lived at an ever increasing pace, which seems to have the effect of

less time not more. Consequently our quality of life suffers and this has

implications on many areas not the least of which is our health. While this topic

is quite distant from design and designers, it is useful to understand over-

arching drawbacks that have crept in to modern life without being foreseen.

With that in mind it is time to return to practical ideas and solutions to some of

the issues raised earlier regarding product manufacturing processes.

An Example in thinking different about our predicament is put forward in a

book entitled Cradle to Cradle. This book is authored by William (Bill)

McDonough, an architect with passion for designing with intention, who in

1996 received the Presidential award for sustainable development, (the

highest environmental honour given by the United States), and Michael

Braungart; a chemist and the founder of the Environmental Protection

Encouragement Agency (EPEA) in Hamburg Germany.12 Together these two

formed a company advising clients on sustainable practices and systems. It is

the knowledge and ideas put forward in this book that I will use as examples of

how to think about today’s manufacture and design.

Cradle to Cradle suggests a system that is a closed loop; it has no waste and

can re-use any raw materials involved, and furthermore proposes a concept to

produce the energy needed in that process. The thought of ‘no waste’ is

foreign to most of us, we consume and throw away vast quantities of organic

matter (food), packaging and as mentioned earlier, hardware (TV’s,

computers, electronics etc) that mostly end up in landfill somewhere. This is a

cradle to grave model and is a one-way traffic mentality where all our waste

10 Thackara, p. 31 11 ibid, p. 31 12 William McDonough, Michael Braungart, (2002), Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things, New York: North Point press.

goes away. The truth, the authors point out, is that there really is no ‘away’.

Waste goes somewhere and stays there, to decompose or not, and as such is

lost forever in this grave. Raw materials fall into two categories; Biological

materials and technical materials (metals used in industry). Biological

materials are literally food for the planet; they are nutrients that are supposed

to be returned to the biological cycle to be consumed by microorganisms and

other animals.13 This replenishes the earth’s system and helps retain the cyclic

nutrient flow needed for healthy biodiversity. Packaging for example (which

makes up about half of all solid waste) could be designed to compost down

and return to the earth as nutrients. As the book points out, “there is no need

for shampoo bottles, toothpaste tubes, yogurt and ice cream containers to last

decades (or centuries) longer than the product that came inside them”.14 It

makes no sense to landfill this material. Imagine being able to throw this type

of waste on the garden, knowing you are helping to return biological nutrients

to the earth?

Technical materials are valuable metals which require damaging and costly

processes to extract from the earth’s crust. As mentioned, these metals then

get used to produce vast quantities of appliances, devices and automobiles.

Again a lot of these products end up in landfill. They are not designed to be

repaired and reused once broken and are even designed in most cases to last

only a certain time, in industrial terms this is called ‘planned obsolescence’.15

Once these metals are landfilled they are lost forever to us, unless we dig

them out again. (This may not be such a bizarre thought in the future!)

Well, you might say, what about recycling? Today we recycle as much as

possible and that is good news but there are some significant problems to

understand. As Cradle to Cradle points out, recycling is sometimes more

harmful to the environment than we would have considered, for two reasons at

least. Firstly, most products that get recycled were not designed to be

recycled; they must be wrestled into their new form with new chemical

additives and more energy and waste to achieve a result. Most plastics

13 Thackara, p.105 14 ibid, p. 105 15 ibid, p. 98

become less usable when recycled. When melted down and combined, the

polymers within the plastic shorten which reduces the flexibility and clarity of

the plastic. This reduces the use of the product and can result in a more toxic

material due to more additives needed for countering this.16 This is what

McDonough and Braungart call downcycling rather than recycling. As they

point out, the material is still destined for landfill; it is only stalled by a life-cycle

or two on the way.17 This ‘downcycling’ problem applies to many products that

are commonly recycled such as paper and aluminium cans.

Secondly, precious metals are mostly lost when recycled as they are melted

down along with all the other materials to produce an inferior downgraded

material not usable again for its original purpose.18 For example, automobiles

when crushed down and recycled lose the high-carbon, high tensile steel and

copper used in the original process.19 The metal is melted down along with the

paint and plastic coatings on the body which produces an inferior quality steel.

New high-quality steel can be added to strengthen the material but it will never

be used to make cars again. Meanwhile we have permanently lost the

precious metals such as copper, manganese and chromium that would be

otherwise useful in their unmixed original state.20

Cradle to Cradle suggests an alternative idea to reverse this loss of valuable

technical nutrients which begins with manufacturers producing items with the

explicit intention of retaining those specific materials. This requires the

designer to design this into the process at the beginning, not trying to squeeze

a product into this form after production. Furthermore, these products could

then be considered more of a ‘service’ rather than ‘owned’ by consumers. For

example, cars, televisions, carpets, computers and refrigerators; all product

that use valuable technical nutrients, could be considered a ‘service’ to be

used.21 When the time comes to replace or upgrade the product the company

responsible would supply a new model for use and retrieve the old product for

breaking down and recover the raw materials. The consumer could use the

16 Thackara, p. 58. 17

ibid, p.4. 18 Braungart, McDonough, p.56. 19 ibid, p.56. 20 Ibid, p. 56,57 21 ibid, p. 111

product as long as needed and upgrade as often as they desired.22 Just as the

biological cycle returns its nutrients to the earth, so too the industrial cycle can

return its nutrients to the manufacturer in a closed loop scenario where there is

ultimately no waste. It is the fundamental idea in this book that it is important

for everyone involved in the process to be better off, both the consumer and

the manufacturer. Contrary to popular mindset good environmental practice

can be better for industry as well.

The authors of Cradle to Cradle also envisage manufacturing buildings and

processes to create energy and nutrients, much like natural processes. The

analogy provided here is a cherry tree, which produces an abundance of

blossom, much more than is needed for its own growth and reproduction. Only

a very small percentage of blossoms that falls to the ground ever grow to be

another cherry tree. But this excess is not ‘waste’ as it falls to the ground to

decompose and in doing so nourishes and replenishes the soil and

microorganisms around it. Nature works on abundance and excess and most

importantly interdependence.23 The cherry tree helps all the area around it and

contributes to the biological cycle with its abundance, and this idea can be

applied to our own manufacturing processes. Industrial processes at present

place emphasis on fewer emissions, less toxic waste, and less use of precious

materials. What if these processes actually gave back to nature as well as

taking from it? If we can build factories whose product and by-product

replenish and nourish the natural biological cycle and re-use technical

nutrients, we could encourage industry and economic growth.24 Rather than

working on a model of ‘guilt’ and ‘reduction’ and ‘less’, we can take our cue

from nature and produce more and celebrate short product life spans and

encourage consumption.25

22 Braungart, McDonough, p. 111 23 Braungart, M. (2007). The wisdom of the cherry tree. International Commerce Review: ECR

Journal, 7(2), 152-156. Retrieved May 11, 2011, from ProQuest Central. (Document ID: 1430141421).

24 ibid. p.1.

25 ibid. p.1.

In conclusion, our current processes and habits are working against nature not

with it. We have been ushered down a path that no one planned or designed

and it is getting uncomfortable. However, there are ways out that do not rely

on constraint, regulation and suffocation of industry. We need to think

differently about processes and products by acknowledging natural cycles of

nutrients. As designers we need to incorporate these ideas at the initial design

stage to avoid downcycling. Imagine celebrating growth and consumption

knowing that in doing so we were feeding our environment and maintaining

valuable technical nutrients? If we aspire to design services and clever

processes rather than products; and celebrate life with a slower less weighty

existence we will be doing more than just living ‘sustainably’, we would be

thriving!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Accelerated life, computers, and the environment, NETFUTURE:Tecnology

and Human responsibility, (54), July 30, (1997).

Braungart, M. (2007). The wisdom of the cherry tree. International Commerce

Review: ECR Journal, 7(2), 152-156. Retrieved May 11, 2011, from ProQuest

Central. (Document ID: 1430141421).

McDonough, W. & Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way

we make things, New York: North Point Press

Thackara, J. (2005). In the Bubble: Designing in a complex world.

Massachusetts: MIT Press

Williams, E.D., Ayres, R.U., & Heller, M. (2002). The 1.7kg Microchip: Energy

and Material use in the production of semiconductor devices. Environmental

Science and Technology, 36(24), 5504.