Reflection A - Giving Packaging A New Life & How It's Made: Packaging

Watching these videos has reinforced my belief that recycling is essential to reaching sustainability. To maintain sustainability, resources need to be replenished at a higher rate than that of expenditure. And expenditure can be slowed down through recycling. Most of the end products of the 'Giving Packaging A New Life' however were down-cycled products. The aluminum cans and PET plastic were truly 're'cycled as they served the purpose they were first intended for however, the composite plastic trays were down-cycled for miscellaneous purposes. Unfortunately we still only recycle two thirds of the plastic we produce. I hope to make a change with the products I design, to create a greener future.

I believe it is part of the responsibility of an Industrial Designer employ stewardship, green materials, and minimize composites. Personally if I were to have multiple materials in a product, which is quite inevitable in most briefs, then I would make it easy to disassemble for future recycling and convenience purposes. It is undeniable that society and companies have aknowledged and acted towards a greener future, especially after the carbon tax has been introduced.Companies are now trying to minimize their carbon footprint through greater efforts in using recycled, sustainable materials and taking a serious approach to recycling. I hope to see this effort continue so that in the long run we may see sustainability as a treasured necessity rather than a choice. I plan to be a part of this change.

I believe that a designer needs to monitor the life-cycle of each material she/he plans to use as it is the designers responsibility to have the product easily and accessibly recycled. When I say that, I mean that the consumer should intuitively understand how to responsibly dispose of the product when it expires. That is a challenge, probably because we have failed to address this issue for so long. For example, a laptop; it feels very strange throwing an old laptop into your red bin as it used to hold so much value. You cannot easily recycle a laptop for materials, however you can use the components inside, hence why companies have started to take back their products when the consumer wishes to upgrade. How do we as designers communicate to the user, through design, the correct way of disposing an expired product? It is at the discretion of the product.