Waste=Food

Task: “Reflect on the cradle-to-cradle protocol discussed in the video. How should industrial designers react to this principle?

The cradle-to-cradle protocol is essentially a closed loop cycle powered by renewable energy throughout each element of the manufacturing process. This protocol is a response to the changing efforts to increasing environmental issues seen from large organisations in society. The original cradle-to-grave system was a linear practice that did not take into account the energy and natural resources that is used to produce, distribute and dispose of a product.

This circular economy adopted by China in recent years sees materials and energy in closed cycles to build a better and healthier nation. As industrial designers, a similar approach should be taken towards each endeavour as a way to limit the increasing amount of waste during the manufacturing process. Before beginning any design, thought should be taken into each stage of development and a focus on sustainability is needed to address the issue of waste. Every part of the design process from conceptualisation to the product’s end of life involves some type of waste. The role of the industrial designer is to identify ways optimise every stage to extend the life of a product and improve the end of life system of these products.

“...everything in biology should go back to soil safely... so the waste of a system would go back to soil...so waste equals food.” – William McDonough

The thought of everything natural and manmade in the world having a cycle is evident with all that we see around us. The same could be said with what we consume for sustenance and nourishment. In a way, designers should be designing so that the end product will eventually find a sustainable way back into the natural environment.

“Everything is a nutrient...when you throw it away, it regenerates life. Only we take things and don’t give anything back” – Michael Braungart

Humans are lazy and tend not to care what they throw away into the environment or what they take from it. So it’s up to the designers to improve the way they produce goods in order to educate people in the effects of a product when it’s time to dispose of it.

“To try to minismise being bad is not enough. Less bad is no good. So try to be good instead of less bad because for less bad, we have too many people on this planet.” – Michael Braungart

This quote by the German toxicologist is a confusing and strange account of what humanity has become. Society is evil towards the environment. Taking everything that it’s produced and barely returning anything back to replenish what was taken. Ideally, everything that has been used would be replaced by something planted back into the earth, however, we take at such an astounding rate that with what we put back, it has no real effect to the positive goodness of the earth.