Watching these videos about recycling, the one thing I’m most surprised about is the effort put into these innovations used for recycling. I didn’t even know that some of the technology used exists! The thing that intrigues me most is the use Optical Sorting System that’s able to identify which kind of plastics the packaging is manufactured from and sort it appropriately which uses infra-red technology. I always thought recycling would be a really long manual process, that machines involvement is required only after the trash is sorted manually by government-paid workers.
It is certainly refreshing to know society and industries are becoming to adapt a more-environmentally approach nowadays than they did years ago. We, as industrial designers have also the responsibility to incorporate more of this approach in designing products. This includes having to think of ways that products can be recycled after they reach the end of their lifecycle. Like what’s said during last lecture, consumerism is a big problem – which people are buying more and more products, triggering companies to make more products to sell. With the fast-advancement of technology these days, old or outdated products are left, creating wastage. We, as designers are to blame if the materials in some of this wastage take more time or energy to recycle.
Although designers are partly to blame, society should also be more educated by the governments, maybe with the help of media and technology of the need of them to be more “green”. Like in Germany, other countries – with government and media aids, should raise awareness of ecological impacts to encourage more recycling. Campaigns encouraging the acts of recycling and the buildings of more recycling factories should be implemented. I believe if this can happen, carbon emissions will be reduced and fewer trees will need to be cut down – making us closer to reaching our goals.
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