Video reflection no.2

I have to admit I do buy bottled water. The reasons? Like what Annie Leonard said in the video "The Story of Bottled Water", I think it has less contaminants, more hygienic and it tastes better. I am convinced bottled water is more hygienic because that's what the companies claim. But one thing I'm always sure of, bottled water tastes BETTER than tap. Tap water has a typical tap water taste, and I'm confident enough that I can differentiate between the two in a taste test. Another reason I drink bottled water is because we Indonesians do not drink from our taps in Indonesia. Tap water in Indonesia is claimed dirty, so we drink from the gallons. Because of this culture, I am hesitant to drink from taps, unless it's filtered. I use Brita at home, but it's not that effective, I can still taste the tap water taste, but I just drink it anyways - yes, I know this is kind of psychological.

I believe that all bottled water - Mount Franklin, Fiji, Pump, Evian, and others, are the same, although sometimes the taste might differ slightly. I wouldn't pay extra dollars for an Evian, unless I'm in a place where it doesn't offer anything else. The decision lies simply on the packaging and brand loyalty. Some brands are just too overpriced, like Evian and Equil. How can water be so expensive? I know pure water is getting harder to find, but other brands don't cost as much! Therefore, I think the factor that makes bottled water so expensive is the bottle.

One aspect of bottled water that I was made aware of a couple of years ago is the bottle itself. It takes so much energy to make it and recycle it. People were encouraged not to use plastic (bags, bottles, etc.). But after that I heard about bottles made from corn, so plastic is degradable and also last week's video reflection about recycling. With all these knowledge and resources we have, wouldn't it be okay to manufacture bottles? Anyways bottles are made with only one material (two with the label) so it's not as complex as electronics.

Business organizations have always concentrate on making lots of profits, they make something new every couple of months. For example, a couple of years ago, Nokia, they offered new phones every 3 months before iPhone and Blackberry came by. Now probably not - they focused more on having quality products that would compare with iPhone and BB. Even apple who claims their products to be environmentally friendly and technologically in front, commits to have a new or improved product every year; and people will buy it for sure. How is this environmentally friendly? And how does this prove the point that their products are good enough to last for years?

As designers it is really important to think about the product's life cycle especially its manufacturing and end of life, although the 'use' phase is the one that contributes most to carbon footprint. Products like disposable cameras are really bad for the environment. I don't understand why cameras have to be disposed of after one time use. It may be cheaper to buy than a real camera, but the environment is paying more for this. And it's this kind of thing that we need to ban in the design industry.

Eco-redesign

We did a group work on disassembling a toaster, taking a look at all the parts and their materials. Put all the information in Greenfly and the toaster's carbon footprint is generated.

Eco-redesign summary here

Video Reflection 1 : Giving Packaging a New Life

Watch video here.

I know that recycling is carried out here in Australia; in residential areas, recreational areas and some shopping malls, different coloured bins are provided for recycling purposes. But I never knew how they recycle and process it back to a new product. No one ever explained, and the products out there don't convince us that they're recycled. Certainly, if they're recycled, the company would be proud of it and they would inform about it on the packaging. I've only seen '5¢ refund for collection in SA'. This certainly encourages the people in SA to recycle. But what about other parts of the world? Why only SA?

One thing I remembered when watching the video - people say plastics cannot be recycled, and they take hundreds of years to decompose. That's why now, they (example, UNSW bookshop) use paper bags "to save the environment" and supermarkets (like Coles and Woolworths) encourage buyers to use cloth bags instead of plastic bags. But since plastics can be recycled, what's so wrong about using plastic bags? And there's still a lot of plastic bottles and products out there...

We all know that our beloved Mother Earth is running out of resources, and recycling is one way to help prevent that. In Germany, recycled paper accounts for 60% in making new paper, recycled steel provides around 40% of the raw material, and probably more than 80% of glass is re-cycled. I say it is extremely possible to increase these numbers to 100%, so new materials are not needed anymore. All other countries should also learn and invest in recycling factories because it's extremely useful and we do need it.

Also, sometimes people are confused about the bins. The bins are usually divided into paper bins and container bins. However, many products are made with more than one material and when people throw it away, they don't want to deal with it anymore. Other times, it's just impossible to tear it apart. A few days ago, I threw a book with steel binds into the paper bin, I also threw cardboard boxes with sticky tapes. This shows that the recycling system is not well thought/planned/designed yet. I know that in the recycling factories, it will be accurately, at lightning speed, sorted out.

But I believe there will be a better way of doing this whole system of recycling, example, an underground tunnel system which automatically sort out every rubbish that we throw and connects it to the factory or incinerator. This way, rubbish is not a problem anymore. In apartments for example, there are recycling bins on every level. So probably they bring the bins down every few days, but there are 20+ levels. So inconvenient, so troublesome. Therefore I strongly believe that there are opportunities for designers, business people and others in this area.

Ecological Footprint

I went to this website > www.myfootprint.org and did the quiz to find out my ecological footprint. I was quite surprised at the results! I can't believe that my lifestyle needs 5.44 Earths. This is sad.. but I believe there is probably NO ONE in this world whose lifestyle needs only 1 Earth. The way we were raised and the current technological environment makes it impossible for us to live with only one Earth. With the present situation (depleting resources, natural disasters, etc.), I dare to say that we don't have an Earth anymore, it's only a 'half' Earth.

From my results, it can be seen that my carbon and housing footprints are lower than the average Australian. The food footprint is a bit too high if I see it from the graph, while goods and services footprint are just slightly higher. I've always thought that carbon footprint is the only thing that's important, so as long as you minimize the use of cars or anything polluting, you're doing your part. Surprisingly, there are still a lot of other factors that affect one's footprint, including the food that you eat. One way to reduce the food footprint is to buy and eat organic food, but the truth is it is more expensive. May be it's healthier and it reduces your footprint. But in Australia, people are economical, so a large percentage of the people would not buy organic food.

Probably a way for the government to reduce everyone's footprints is to reinforce people to use less private cars and energy, and subsidize people to eat healthier, organic food. This will be a 2-in-1 advantage for Australia as almost half of the population is suffering from obesity. Therefore, Australians can get healthy while reducing their footprints at the same time.