THE STORY OF... BOTTLED WATER & THINGS

THE STORY OF BOTTLED WATER

Having been born In Indonesia, I was always convinced that bottled water is cleaner than the tap water in all countries. That is because in Indonesia, unfiltered tap water is dangerous for people’s health. However, after watching this video, I just found out that in countries such as Australia and America, tap water is cleaner than some of the bottled water that are sold in the stores.

The presentation of the information about bottled water by Annie Leonard, I think is really effective, as it’s easy to understand and almost everyone with basic English will be able to understand clearly what she’s trying to tell us. I have to agree that corporations did manufacture demand that change people’s perception of tap water. However,  by personal experience, I have to disagree on the claim that tap water tastes better than bottled water. I know a lot of my friends in Australia that can’t and won’t drink water from the tap, not because they’re dirty – but because of their slightly unpleasant taste compared to bottled water. That, however is not a good enough reason to keep buying bottled water, as water filters are available at an affordable price. Also, the negative impacts such as pollution and the difficulty of recycling it (having to downcycle it later, then scraps are then sent to India, creating more pollution there) clearly outweighs the positives. 

LIFE PSYCLE-OLOGY

I feel that this almost 6 minutes animation, although not as to-the-point as “The Story of Bottled Water”, it's message delivery is just as effective. “The Story of Bottled Water” is aimed at general public, where as this video here is aimed at us, designers. The video is in a way, a wake up call for designers to start thinking about what happens after the end of product life-cycle. We, as designers always try to make design which is highly demanded with the cost as cheap as possible, without thinking that the some materials can’t be recycled, and that they are just going straight to junk, adding pollution to the world.

As my previous blog entry noted, designers have to consider every single materials – of whether it can be recycled and if yes, then how can it be recycled. It is pretty much our fault, releasing a new invention or adding a new feature for a type of model in such a short time. For example, Apple (A company which can be said, makes products which are design-oriented) release a new version of whatever device that is popular at the moment just to get more revenue. What do they do with the older version then, which everyone forgets as soon as the new version is released? 

This video emphasizes that idea, of that a designer should think of its ecological consequences before making a product. That, I think is very influential for the Industrial Design community as a whole.

TASK 3 - ECO REDESIGN (Kettle)

The product that we choose for the disassembly is an electric kettle. This product took us about 2 hours t0 dissamble it into parts. The hardest thing for us is to identify how many parts and to take out some of the parts due due to alot of many different fasteners that keeps the parts together.


In this exercise we've identified the product materials and discussed the process of how the parts were made. This kettle predominantly uses material of Polypropylene. The design of this product is simple, although there is a challenge for us to take out the heating system due to this part having 8 screws, therefore making it harder for us to take it out. After the disassembly we found out that turns out all the materials of this product ended up have to go to landfill, that nothing can be really recycled which is such a waste and an indication of a non eco-friendly product.

The report from the greenfly shows that the part that has most environment impact is the heating system. (It took us a long time to separate it.) The result also shows that the design company didn't really consider the environmental impact this product could cause when they're designing the product, which is a shame, since a huge part of a good design is that it may be low in cost, but it still should be a bit sustainable at the very least.


For redesigning this product we can make it more environmentally friendly by not using as much materials as it is. We considered reducing the requirements of using a large amount of fasteners, therefore most of the parts we can use self-locking techniques, and in this way,we'll be able to reduce the manufacturing cost and the product cost and also it will be easier for us to recycle the product, making it more environmentally friendly as well.

Group Members:
- Stanley Darmawan (Me)
- Susanna Li
- Guida Arezzi
- Jen Jun Zhu
- Katy

MY ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT

Here's the result that I got from the website http://www.myfootprint.org/

So, to answer the question of how big my ecological footprint is -- It is pretty big I guess.
Well, I usually use public transportation such as bus and trains to get anywhere since I live in an area where I can get an easy access to buses. Also, I don't usually take long showers and I try to save water by not taking long showers.

One of the things that I have to change to reduce my ecological footprint even more is the amount of electricity that I use, cause sometimes I tend to just leave my laptop on for a whole day, it's either because I forgot to turn it off or because I leave it on purpose to download something off the web.
Another thing that I have to change is my eating habit, although it's hard I'm probably have to go with a more vegan diet since currently it is above country's average.