If governments stopped dumping resources in landfill, would individuals feel less inclined to dump them on the side of the road?
Is dumping individuals not just a convenience/cost choice, or is it also a "well if they can just jump the stuff I should be able to too"?
Plenty of species have reached extinction despite evolution, some probably because of it. Can we look forward far enough to guide our technical evolution so that it does not send us in the same direction as those species? Can we direct it to support a circular future?
6/6
Will acceptance that evolution (natural or manufactured) is a reaction to present inputs, but not necessarily a reaction to all inputs, and therefore not necessarily a solution to all problems, allow us to be more careful in our progression?
5/6
Will accepting that technological advancements do not necessarily bring about improvements to sustainability and circularity help us to consider other solutions to sustainability?
4/6
When we discuss ways to increase circularity and reduce consumption there is a clear fear of the potentially negative side-effects on our way of life, yet the alternative seems to get far less airtime.
3/6
Is the concept that innovation will save us from climate change a result of a misunderstanding of evolution and industrial 'progress'? A perception that change = improvement, and that new = advancement?
Is language like advancement obscuring our visibility of other impacts of change?
2/6
"The belief in progress... causes the incapability of humans to understand that their existence is threatened"
(Ehgartner et al. 2017 - On the obsolescence of human beings in sustainable development)
Are we still of the illusion that change is progress toward something?
1/6
Can this language of resource retention and resource consumption avoidance be carried across sustainability more broadly, and can examples of the cost of disposal in other elements of business help us understand the costs in goods?
#circulareconomy #sustainability
5/5
In goods production retaining resources in use to avoid the need for new for new ones is a pretty clear example of sustainability/circularity. Reuse is a highly efficient example of this, recycling a less efficient one.
4/5
The purchase of a new office printer may look cheaper than repairing an existing one, but what about the time spent unboxing, setting it up, training everyone to use it?
3/5
In management, we know that there is a substantial resource requirement (training, inefficiency, downtime between employees) in hiring and training a new employee (resource), compared with retaining an existing employee (resource).
2/5
Can we define sustainability simply as the retention of resources in use, to avoid the need for new resource consumption?
In retail we understand that retaining an existing customer (resource) in use is far cheaper (requires far less resources) than engaging a new one.
1/5
#waste #history #circulareconomy #disposability #singleuse
Was the invention of the pencil the beginning of throwaway consumption? 3/4 or more (the timber) of the product is disposable packaging,thrown out without value as it is sharpened. Was there an earlier product where so much of the product was single use packaging?
What if a design company showcased waste in order to eliminate it? Making goods from hard to reuse or recycle materials and instead of calling them 'made from waste' they just called them 'waste'? What if the exposure generated pressured the companies making the waste in the first place to stop?
I am not suggesting that e-bikes have no benefit, just that the wasts
associated with their use/misuse needs consideration.
Most of the data doesn't clearly distinguish between hire bikes and hire e-bikes, which makes it difficult. I recall more specific articles 5-10 years ago but am having trouble locating them now.
Here is a little on the share bikes more generally, electric bikes have made up part of this excess over recent years. www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/0...
Electric lawnmowers similarly. I was excited to see big brands introducing Electric lawnmowers which looked like they used traditional lawnmower bases and motor mounting, thrn disappointed when it was very hard to impossible to buy those motor and battery packs as a kit to fit to existing mowers.
I had hoped that the Copenhagen wheel would be a game-changer - the ability to easily electrify your existing bike with an all-in-1 power wheel, providing electric niek benefits with a fraction of the waste of a whole new bike, but it doesn't seem to have occurred.
That's an interesting suggestion. Where an electric bike regularly replaces the use of s car and us used for many years, yes. We can't however ignore the piles of hundreds of thousands of e-bikes from failed hire schemes that represent copious waste for little to no CE gain.
#circulareconomy #circulardesign #sustainabledesign #reuse #reimagine #repurpose
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Sadly it isn't completely absent from the election debate, as one side (the coalition) are announcing policies to actively slow our already slow energy transition.
It does seem an easy target for Labour or the minor parties:
"41,000 workers will lose their jobs will be lost under Dutton."
Glad to see media picking this up. I ran the numbers when it was first announced and came to the same conclusion. Coalition carefully never said the average saving was $14, they gave an example of a person who would save $14 and let media get it wrong, a sly manoeuvre to avoid being called liars.
My kid's birthday party was today. Yes, reuse takes a little more time than take-make-dispose, but it is worth it. These 34 cups are on their 6th birthday with us, so they represent 204 cups not wasted, but some of these cups are 40+ years old, seeing 100s of uses. That's a lot of waste avoided.
Can hero designers produce demand for products that last, made from products that already exist, leading to a more circular and sustainable future?
6/6
Could the restrictions in volumes of available resources for reuse by hero designers create demand through scarcity and make an opportunity rather than a barrier from the variations in end-of-life resources?
5/6
Could reintroducing hero designers and design languages that exude passion and optimism provide the catalyst for a reuse economy based on desire? Could hero designers producing aspirational products from salvaged materials generate demand for reuse and increase how long consumers use goods?
4/6
