Giving Packaging a New Life & How it's made packaging Video Reflection

People nowadays know that recycling is carrioud out here in Australia, even in residential areas, recreational areas and some shopping malls, we are aware that different coloured bins are provided for recycling purposes. But we never understand how the process of recycle itself which brings back top be a new product. No one ever explained especially for those immigrants moving in to Australia 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 aware that this world is running out recources and one way to help prevent it is to recycle products. In the video, it says that plastics cannot be recycled as they take hundreds of years to decompose. 

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.

According to How It's made video, it says that tetra pak is a good example of recyclable materials for packging and very eco friendly. Tetra pack is made up pf layers of foils, paper and plastics which are all recyclable. In fact, Tetra pack is recyclable in many facilities however many smaller communities still do not have the equipment to process of recycling Tetra pack in an efficient way.

Talking about recycling, sometimes people are also 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.

Finally, i would strongly suggest the designers to watch these videos so that they can also contribute their design in an eco friendly ways and hope that this effort can help conserve our beloved mother earth. 

Bio-inspired Project Peer Comments

Matt Caraig
http://mfredrick.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/studio-2-project-one-bioinspired.html?showComment=1332748890378#c6687649687583583994

Daming Chen
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6797674082400671831&postID=5154960666799154380&isPopup=true

Kevin Peng
http://kevinpeng3373311.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/osmosis-pot-plant.html?showComment=1332749679607#c8954406099337791271

Benjamin Ma
http://mabenjamin.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/crown-umbrella-rack.html?showComment=1332750065084#c7402047964118568411

Cai Min, Stephanie
http://lovedbyee.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/studio-project1.html?showComment=1332750551715#c7427744143483287238

Bio-Inspired Can/tins storage

Rationale

This project is to develop a bio-inspired domestic storage for medium to high density living. For this task, I've decided to do a can storage that is inspired by the behaviour of elephant's trunk. Looking at the trends of house pantry especially in small apartments, people tend to store their cans everywhere or hidden inside the drawer and often they forget where they put their food cans until it become outdated.

So my solution to this problem is this rack which enables people to store their food cans in a more organized ways. The rack itself is naturally quite flexible for people to use, people can stick it to the wall, let the rack stand by itself, or even put it in any angle that suits the space better. This feature is mimetically follows the muscle flexibility of the trunk as the trunk itself can be directed to all angles just as this storage. This can storage also follows elephant's trunk's natural strong feature. This cans storage can be used either to make the cans visible and more organized to store, it also suits well for minimizing space for can storage. The cans itself can be stacked up and it won’t fall off because this rack is very steady because of the feature at the tip (which also mimically the trunk's tip).  This feature is inspired by the elephant's behaviour of picking up many branches by binding it using its trunk without it falling off.

The design itself is simple and yet aesthetically appealing which also follows my design philosophy. The inspiration of animal's behaviour such as elephant and its trunk feature has successfully helped me designing this storage and also understanding how we as designers can learn from nature's system to produce very useful products.

My only improvements would be playing around more with the features, and improve its features with more functionality which will improve customer's satisfactions and pleasure with the product, though it means more research and time to do it. 

The 11th Hour

Video Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGylCNIKttg&feature=youtu.be

The 11th Hour is a very insightful video of how world has deteriorating for the past few centuries and how badly the effect of human practice towards nature. The video has provided different opinions and views, the true facts that supported by scientific research and it shows that there is a huge link between nature and human being.

The video also commented on how we as human tend to think that we are superior and have the right to exploit nature whatever we want it. However, we forget that we are actually part of nature and we can't live without nature around us. The person supports this idea by saying that even in our body, there are millions of other living creatures and organisms that support our body mechanism. so Simply saying, we are indeed part of nature and each nature organisms can't be superior to each other.

Sadly though, People nowadays have become so materialistic and consumerist. All they think is about themselves and money that they can gain. They always trust Economists and that's why they don't think about other views except gain profits. Nature has become the victim of this exploitation of human getting profits.

Another sad facts, is the idea of deforestation and over exploitation that has been existed in America, Europe and Asia. In fact, 99.99% of all species has become extinct and over fifty thousand species also become extinct each year. which i believe it's the result of over exploitation. People over exploit nature in amount that is bigger than what they need, and it's ironic how they throw away the exceed resources back to nature but of course in an unacceptable conditions.

It's a pity if we realize that whatever human do in the world ad towards nature will in fact affect us back. For instance, deforestation will leads to drought and drought will cause death to animals and plants which are also our sources of foods and will then impacts us as we will get hungry and die eventually if there is not enough water and food resources. 

This video has even encourage designers to explore on nature and produce products that is responsible towards nature. We as designers have to consider the consequences on each design we explore on. So it's very essential for us to always design sustainable products using sustainable materials and stops the cradle to grave concepts. 

Nature is a great teacher of design, not that we destroy nature but we should look at nature to inspire us. Well of course it's not easy to solve this big problem that have been already been done for years, but we should stop this and not letting this problem continue to happen. As consumers, vote for sustainable products eventhough it's a bit more expensive. Our life is more precious and pray more attention on what you buys!  

Peer Comments

Doug Cusack
http://dougcusack-ides1031.blogspot.com/2011/10/project-two-upcycled-utility-box.html?showComment=1318900882407#c4628366507791750440

Ginny Kwok
http://ginnykwok.blogspot.com/2011/10/glamour.html?showComment=1318912660699#c3368943205326171580


CAI MIN(Stephanie)
http://lovedbyee.blogspot.com/2011/10/xxx.html?showComment=1318913274190#c5858780098012892063

Cherrie Fillisia
http://cf-indesign.blogspot.com/2011/10/project-2-upcycled-utility.html?showComment=1318913526855#c6816573193276564338

Luke Messina
http://idesluke.blogspot.com/2011/10/project-2-upcycled-recycling.html?showComment=1318913895090#c1928164886906927984

Project 2-Upcycled Utility

 Rationale:

The aim of this project is to come up with an elegant mood lamp made out of advertising posters producing less waste as possible. When I research what makes a good lamp, it came up with good lamp shades and the light it produces. Lamp can gives the extra touch in decorations and it’s really important especially in interior design.

My solution is to come up with an elegant design of upcycled advertising poster that emphasizes on the characteristics of the materials itself. The materials are manipulated by a little folding and arrangements so that it produces an elegant, intelligent design that will not only be good for the decorations but also produces good lighting for indoor purposes.

I firstly did some prototypes for my lampshades on normal paper, however, I encountered some problem as the real material of the poster does not react like paper, it’s more stiff and therefore it does not look as flowing as I would like to be. 

After trying different concepts, I established my final design using similar concept as I did on paper. With a little folding technique and some arrangements based on one point of the circle, I finally created a lampshade that is made of 18 rectangular shapes strips and joined them using brass fasteners. This design was inspired again by my design philosophy of creating a product that is simple and yet aesthetically beautiful. 

Another advantage of my lamp is that it produces 0% waste, so the whole poster can be used and therefore it’s sustainably very good. Pinning techniques was used to add extra details and decorations of the lamp shade. This patterns will gives feminine, elegant touch while at the same time allowing the radiance of the light to flow towards outside the lampshade. 

My only improvement would be to try making a better pattern that will therefore produces more interesting shadows.

Project 2-Upcycled Utility-Assembly Instructions

Assembly Instructions:
Inside the package:
-Plastic sections x 18
-Brass fasteners x 18
-Lightning Assembly x1
-Circle Acrylic piece x 1

1.  Begin with attaching two plastic sections and use brass fastener to fasten it. 

2.  Repeat steps until all the plastic sections are joined around a circle (Leave the first and last piece unattached), leave it a side.

3.  Take the acrylic piece and lightning assembly, attach the acrylic piece to lightning assembly

4. Now take the plastic sections and put it on top around the acrylic piece. Use the last brass fasteners to join the opened sections. And fasten the top part of the lightning assembly.

5. Finally, install a light bulb, and the lamp is ready to be used.