One man's trash is another man's treasure

My sister was an extremely picky eater as a child and this made the majority of our meals as a family extremely unpleasant.  Every night the same scenario would repeat itself, my sister would hate the meal and refuse to eat it and my mother would become extremely irritated.  The stubborn nature of both my mother and sister often caused the two to engage in nightly dinner stand-offs that could last for hours.  Usually after an hour my mom would realize this was a battle that she could not win and eventually dismiss my sister from the dinner table.  My mother would make her way to the kitchen sink to wash the full plate of food and in disgust she would look over at my sister and say, “you know kids in China are starving and would love to eat this!”  The idea of my sister wasting food truly irritated my mother.  However, if you were to ask the opinion of a manufacturer that utilized the cradle to cradle system of design I’m certain you would get  a completely different response.

Cradle to cradle design is a production process where the concept of waste doesn’t exist.  In the cradle to cradle production process every resource and material is fully utilized by manufacturers and producers.  Each product is designed with the intent to provide the planet with some form of nourishment.  In the very beginning of the production process the manufacturer and/or producer determines each products fundamental purpose.  Products have more than just a functional purpose, rather products are designed to feed the earth’s biological or technical metabolism.  The concept of my design is based on the technical cycle of the cradle to cradle model.  The technical cycle is a closed loop system where materials are circulated and reused.  Materials are designed to be products of service that can be enjoyed by a variety of consumers.

The eco-leasing and “rent-a-solvent” concepts described by McDonough and Braungart helped me form the basis of my design concept.  My concept incorporates the technical metabolism that largely focus on reusable service based products.  Instead, of purchasing apparel products all products would be leased to customers.  For example, if a consumer wanted a blue blouse from the GAP she would go to the company’s retail store.  Products would be displayed on fixtures and mannequins and grouped by size.  Once desired product is selected the customer will proceed to the cash register to complete the leasing transaction.  The GAP employee would put the name of the customer in the company’s database that’s designed to track and monitor the company’s inventory.  The customer pays a leasing fee for the product that she will have for a defined period of time.  Once the specified period ends she will be expected to return the item to the retail store.  The company database would have the customers credit card information on file.  This is a measure that’s taken by retailers to ensure that customers return the leased items on time.  If the customer fails to return the item the retailer will charge the customer until the item is returned.  Consumers also have the option of going on retailers website in order to browse the products leased by the retailer.  The website allows consumers to reserve specific items based on the products availability.

Manufacturers are largely responsible in constructing sustainable products that are high in quality.  The transportation process that’s often used by retailers to transport products can have many detrimental affects on the environment.  To avoid the depletion of the environment retailers hire local manufacturers to produce and design products.  Localized production will boost local economies and retailers profits will steadily increase due to the reduction of costs.  According to McDonough and Braungar, consumers enjoying buying new products because it makes them feel more powerful and unique.  This is a significant barrier that poses a threat in the future adoption of systems using the cradle to cradle design. The following quote by Albert Einstein was featured in the beginning of the cradle to cradle application video, “the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”  I found this quote to be powerful as well as inspirational.  Ultimately this quote helped me determine the distinct roles that would be assigned to manufacturers in my design concept.  The role of manufacturers is developing new and creative ways to reuse the worn out materials from previously leased products.  Manufacturers creative utilization of materials will give retailers a creative edge while also giving consumers the opportunity to lease products with unique characteristics.  The video and the excerpt from McDonough and Braungar’s book both reiterate the importance of being fully aware of every aspect of a product.  My design concept is intended to look at the different angles of a product as well provide waste free materials as a means to enrich a products technical metabolism.

  

Out with the Global, in with the Local

If your an Oklahoma resident who enjoys shopping at Urban Outfitters, H&M, American Apparel, or Free People I’m sure you share the same frustrations regarding the extremely limited shopping selections that our great state has to offer.  An Oklahoma resident has two options: Option A is shopping online or Option B is driving to Dallas and/or other surrounding states.  Try to imagine the amount of time and money you would save if all of these stores were located in Oklahoma.  Many benefits are associated with localizing the production of apparel and textile products.  A design concept of a sustainable future focuses on producing products locally which ultimately reinforces the concept of sustainability and further enhances the lives of consumers.

According to Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys, “the global market in textile production means that many textile products are transported several times between processors before a product reaches a user- indeed it is thought that the average T-shirt travels the equivalent distance of once around the globe during its production.”  The transportation of textile products negatively impacts our environment by enlarging  the size of our carbon footprint.  To preserve our environment for future generations to enjoy we must eliminate the production methods that do not mimic the characteristics of nature.  The author Benyus eloquently states “nature doesn’t commute to work”, thus further reinforcing the importance of incorporating the qualities of nature into the various practices of production. Globally mass producing products defies the limits of nature and results in unsustainable impacts on the environment as well as the lives of consumers.  A design concept of a sustainable future is founded on the principle that advocates to diversify and cooperate to fully use the resources of our natural habitats.   Focusing on this principle will significantly reduce the multitude of damages that are being posed on the environment through the global production of products.  My design concept for the future would require states to produce their own products by utilizing the natural resources that are currently available.  For example, the clothing outfitting the people of Oklahoma would be produced locally and the majority of products would feature materials made from cotton, seeing that cotton is largely cultivated in the southern portions of the United States.  The process of cultivating cotton would be purely organic and avoid irrigation methods that require excessive amounts of water.  

Another principle  this design concept is largely founded upon is gathering and using energy more efficiently.  Producing apparel and textile products within state lines would use less energy as opposed to producing products internationally.  The specifics of this design concept would encourage states to use their natural resources as well as employing local workers to construct and produce products.  States that lack an adequate supply of available natural resources have the option of using resources from other states.  However, resources obtained from other states would be more costly due to a new system of taxation that’s established by the government that taxes resources that are not locally grown and produced. Under this new regulations states would buy natural resources from other states, but each resource would be heavily taxed.  For example, if Washington state desired to produce products made from a natural resource that was currently unavailable in the state the state would have the option to purchase this particular resource from another state. If a state were to purchase resources from another state they would still be expected to produce the final product using local methods of production.  Concentrating on local levels of production will enhance local economies as well as minimize the environmental impacts relating to the transportation of products.  The taxation of resources that this design concept requires is used to encourage local producers to research potential alternatives for the future by exploring the science of biomimicry that’s described by Bradley Quinn.  The science of biomimicry studies animals and plants while exploring the variety of advantages humans could have by mimicking their systems and processes.  The incentive of this tax system is to motivate local producers to investigate other methods to which they could potentially utilize their available natural resources.  The fashion designer, Suzanne Lee, utilizes the science of biomimicry by combining the available resources such as, green tea, sugar, a few microbes, and a little time.  Combining these resources creates a bacterial cellulose that can be used to replace the use of fabrics and materials in textile and clothing products.

Localized production would essentially raise the awareness of consumers, thus further allowing consumers to become more educated relating to the concept of sustainability.   Many consumers cannot fully comprehend the future implications that will inevitably result from their unsustainable actions.  The concept of designing locally is invested in increasing the foresight of consumers by bringing environmentally fueled issues closer to home.  Residents of a localized community each assume the social responsibility to enrich their communities by optimizing their natural resources as well as consistently striving to develop new alternatives to creatively use the resources that mother nature supplies. 

Refusing to Satisfy the Appetites of Young Grasshoppers

Picture this:

It’s dinner time and you decide to dine at your favorite Chinese restaurant.  While polishing off a second helping of sesame chicken and beef lo mein, you ask yourself the question “should I or should I not make a third trip to the buffet?”  Upon your realization that a meal at a Chinese restaurant cannot be complete without a fortune cookie, you begin to move towards the buffet to quickly grab a fortune cookie.  Breaking the crispy layers of the fortune cooking you expect to find a fortune asserting a phrase like, “good things take time”, however your fortune states that, “Chinese food is satisfying in the moment young grasshopper, but isn’t long term.”   Chinese cuisine contains monosodium glutamate, an appetite suppressant, that leads you to believe your appetite has been satisfied, but an hour after eating the sensation of hunger returns.  Consumers consumption patterns and Chinese cuisine have several characteristics that are highly similar in nature.  Consumers actively consume in hopes that it will satisfy their needs and desires.  However, designers, retailers, and marketers employ “appetite suppressants”, such as advertisements, discount price lining, and celebrity endorsements to convince consumers to buy their products and/or services.  Persuading consumers into believing they NEED a product inevitably increasing the supply and demand of products. The design concepts I’ve developed to address the excessive consumption of consumers and its damaging impacts on the environment.

According to (Gradel & Allenby, 2002),industrial ecology is aligned with practices that ensure manufacturing is sustainable over the long term if properly defined and executed, continually updated in light of new data and understanding, and properly supported by enlightened government policies.”  Currently, our society is motivated purely by productivity and growth.  We focus more on the quantity of a product rather than the overall quality.  The multitude of media advertisements have generously contributed to our unhealthy fixation on mass producing an excessive amount of products.  From a young age we are conditioned to be efficient multi-taskers.  Energy drinks are one example of products marketed to consumers to encourage multi-tasking and efficiency.  For instance, the commercials for Red Bull energy drinks markets products with the catchy slogan that tries to convince consumers that drinking Red Bull will give them wings, thus leading to higher levels of efficiency.  The “quantity over quality” mentality that society currently possesses must be replaced by a new mentality that focuses on optimization rather than maximization.  According to (Benyus, 1997), implementing the principle of optimizing rather than maximizing will mean “being more competitive, doing more with less, and being more efficient than your competitor.” Integrating this principle into our environment will require consumers to be more mindful and conscious concerning the amount of products we consume.  To forward the progression of this principle requires a new design that transforms the concept of manufacturing.  The government would establish regulations that limited the amount of products that manufacturers are allowed to produce.  The government would determine the total amount of products that takes into account additional factors such as cultural, economic, social, and technological.  This policy is intended to encourage the production practices of manufacturers to reflect values representing quality not quantity.  Products that are high in quality and not cheaply made are more durable.  Applying government regulations to the systems of manufacturing will steer manufacturers and developers away from satisfying society’s bottomless appetite for consumption.  The government will integrate this design concept gradually into manufacturing systems in a sequence of four phases.  Implementing this design concept in four separate intervals is aimed towards allowing designers, manufacturers, and developers an adequate amount of time to adjust their methods of manufacturing to new sustainable alternatives that are long term solutions.  Manufacturers failing to adhere to the new government regulations employing this design concept will be fined then prosecuted if offenses continue to proceed.  Manufacturers as well as consumers maybe hesitant at first to this design concept because products that are higher in quality are likely to command higher prices.  However, by the end of the fourth phase consumers and manufacturers will become more acclimated with the regulations and recognize the financial and environmental benefits of this concept.  

An additional design concept that further addresses our unsustainable patterns of excessive consumption focuses on minimizing the use of materials.  Integrating this principle into the design concept, known as ‘tailor materialization’ is geared towards repressing the mental modes that encourages our patterns of excessive consumptions.  For instance, the mental modes possessed by individuals who use excessive amounts of products in order to increase social mobility and personal self worth. This design concept requires a mental mode that adheres to the “less is more” philosophy.  Throughout history the apparel and textile industry have repeatedly engaged in using unnecessary materials that fail to increase the functionality or utility of products.  In my design concept, clothing will no longer feature unnecessary materials that fails to enhance the product as a whole.  For example, the back pockets of jeans, pants, and shorts would be eliminated in order to conserve material.  Retailers and manufacturers would encourage the minimal use of materials by employing just in time manufacturing.  Jeans and pants would be produced based on the demand from consumers on a product to product basis.  However, an assortment of style ‘samples’ would be produced in terms of pants and jeans, that would be displayed on the sales floor and intended for consumers to try on.  For example, a consumer browsing at the Gap discovers a style of jeans that they really like.  The consumer would take the style “sample” that’s displayed on the sales floor back to the fitting rooms.  Upon entering the fitting rooms the consumer would be greeted by a seamstress that would have the consumer try on the pair of jeans to take her measurements in order to see if any length needed to be added or taken off.  Once the seamstress determines the exact measurements she would log on to the company’s database that interlinks each participate involved in the different phases of the company’s supply chain.  The seamstress would contact the manufacturers to specify the exact measurements of the specific style of jeans and/or pants.  At the request of the seamstress the manufacturer would construct the specified product and would be shipped on a weekly basis to the retailer.  This design concept would allow designers, manufacturers, and retailers to monitor the amount of materials that are used in their products.  Wisely monitoring the use of materials would considerably reduce costs, thus resulting in designers, retailers, and manufacturers experiencing an increase in profits.  Consumer’s can also benefit from the application of  ‘tailored materialization’ seeing that it enhances the value of products by customizing ‘one of a kind’ items for each consumer.

The fundamental purpose of my design concepts are aimed to reduce the patterns of over consumption.  We must apply the advice of (Benyus, 2007) that contends “the farther removed we become from nature in our attitudes, lifestyles, and spirituality, the more dependent we’ll become on the products of this transformation.”  Society as a whole must acquire similar environmental values in order to sustainably align our attitudes, lifestyles, and beliefs.  The possession of similar societal environmental values will essentially make the endeavor of integrating sustainable design concepts an easier process that’s more simplistic in nature.