My last blog post focused on greener packaging, and today I read a post in the New York Times "By Design" blog about replacing materials currently used to manufacture products themselves with more environmentally friendly ones.
It's interesting to think about how product designers need to develop working relationships with chemists and educate themselves on material science, if they want to design more healthful products. For example, using soy-based polyurethane instead of petroleum-based polyurethane not only reduces our dependence on natural gas and crude oil, but also helps support more U.S. soybean farmers.
Using renewable and/or recyclable resources as the basis for products is better for our health and the environment. So here's to designing not new things, but better things.
| posted by Amy on 11.05.09 at 11:02 |
| Huzzah! You're absolutely right -- it's so inspiring to see how people are coming up with ways to decrease our waste (we've seen the horrific damage it has done - check out the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on YouTube, it's unbelievable). I'm just waiting until the day where there are plastic products that begin to decompose immediately when they come into contact with soil (as they propose in Ernest Callenbach's "Ecotopia"). |
