Week 6

 Product Design Considerations 2 

Compared to product design considerations 1 in week 4 which was mainly about the selection of materials, week 6 was more about changes in design which could lead to better and different attributes of a material. 

The two main points covered this week were product life cycle and the Cradle-to-Cradle Design (C2C). 

Sustainable Design  

Before we begin, a quick glance at environmental sustainability will provide insight as to how to create products that have considered the environmental, social, and economic impacts from the initial phase through to the end of life. Shown below are a couple of sustainable design strategies that help to create better environmentally friendly and sustainable products. 

 

 

 

Some general guidelines can be followed to lower the environmental impact and increase sustainability : 

•Use non-toxic, sustainably produced, or recycled materials. 

•Use energy efficient processes. 

•Make product last longer. 

•Design for reuse and recycling. (e.g. easy to disassemble) 

•Consider product life cycle. 

•Shift from personal ownership to shared ownership. 

•Buy from nearby 

 

In a typical product life cycle,  

 

A typical product life cycle consists of 6 stages, starting with raw materials and ending when the product reaches it end of life, i.e. the disposal stage. Product designers make use of a technique know as the Life Cycle Analysis or Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to examine environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product’s life from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling. 

For example, a product life cycle of a colorimeter would look like 

 

 

Cradle to Cradle Design 

In a typical product life cycle,(Cradle to Grave), it would consist of three main stages, 

 

• Cradle (Raw Materials)(Take) 

• Manufacture(Make) 

• Grave(Waste) 

A cradle-to-grave product system is a linear model for materials that begins with resource extraction, moves to product manufacturing, and, ends with a ‘grave’, i.e. when the product is disposed of in a landfill or incinerator. 

 

Instead, a more sustainable approach to products was developed, known as cradle to cradle (C2C), a biomimetic approach to the design of products and systems that emulates nature's processes. 

The key principles of C2C design can be summarized into three points, 

Nutrients become nutrients again 

This can be found in nature, typically in an ecosystem, where the waste of an organism can be used as food for another. For example, the blossoms of a tree fall to the ground where they are degraded and become food for other organisms. 

Use of renewable energies 

Shown in products like solar panels or wind turbines, the use of renewable energies refers to the usage of natural resources that are constantly replenished such as sunlight or wind to power systems. 

Celebrate diversity 

Diversity can help ecosystems to be more interdependent, with each process benefitting from each other, through the use of byproducts. This can enable the entire system to benefit from each other and be more sustainable. 

In the next activity, in integrating the principles nutrients become nutrients again and use of renewable energy, we managed to make our product life cycle more sustainable and environmentally friendly by using materials that are biodegradable like cardboard instead of plastics. 

Reflection 

Through the lessons on product life cycles and the different design approaches like cradle to grave and C2C, we have learnt to approach the selection of materials and the design of our chemical product through different perspectives, thus allowing us to tweak our selection criteria and ideation to create a more sustainable final product.