Topic 2 

==2.1 Resources and Non-renewable resources==

Reserves - for how long will we have this resource?

Renewable Resources
1.) Are inexhaustible 2.) Are not affected by human activities 3.) Release less carbon emissions 4.) More expensive to implement. eg. hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, wind, tidal

Non Renewable Resources
1.) Resources are present in fixed and limited quantities. 2.) Are exhaustible. 3.) Release more carbon emissions. 4.) Less expensive to implement. eg. coal, timber, natural gas, oil, nuclear

==2.2 Waste Mitigation Strategies==

Re-use - same product but different context

Repair - renewing or setructing a broken/damaged part of a product

Re-engineer - redesign a part or a whole product to improve it

Recycle

Recondition - rebuilding an old product to be “new”

Dematerialisation - “do more with less”, trying to use less materials

Waste reduction - Looking into the current management of waste

Methodologies for waste reduction:

• Developing new bio-fuels, self-decomposing materials, building products from recyclable materials, reconditioning products and building products with a “cradle to cradle” life-cycle.
• Making consumers and manufacturers aware of pollutants and the effect on the environment, passing acts/legislation to ban/reduce these pollutants i.e. the EU “Take Back” program and the US “Clean Air Act”. Eco-labeling products for consumer awareness
• Following ISO (International standards organisations) 14000

Designing out waste - The prevention, monitoring and handling of waste, coming up with solutions to deal with pollution and waste.

Methodologies for designing out waste:

• Product recovery strategies at end-of-life/disposal
• Energy from waste, reuse of parts of products, recycling from parts of products.
• Circular economy-the use of waste as a resource within a closed loop system
• Environmentalists have a large influence on product marketability, designers and manufactures often work together to design products which are deemed as Green/Environmentally friendly.

Raw Material Recovery - separating the component to recover the parts of the product you need

WEEE Recovery - a complex mixture of materials and components from electrical products that

can cause major environmental and health problems

Energy recovery (ex; waste to energy (WtE) or energy from waste (EfW)) - is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from the primary treatment of waste.

Life Cycle Analysis - a tool which designers use to asses and equalise the enviromental impact of a product. Helps to see areas in a product that can be improved

Circular Economy - An economy model in which resources remain in use for as long as possible

==2.3 Energy Utilisation, Storage and Distribution Waste Mitigation Strategies==

Embodied Energy - all the energy that required to produce the product

Combined heat and power (CHP) - is an efficient and clean approach to generating electric

power and useful thermal energy from a single fuel source. CHP is used either to replace

or supplement conventional separate heat and power (SHP). Instead of purchasing

electricity from the local utility and burning fuel in an on-site furnace or boiler to produce

thermal energy, an industrial or commercial facility can use CHP to provide both energy

services in one energy-efficient step

Measuring:

• record carbon emissions
• discover how much is being produced
• discover who/ where it is produced
• track your carbon footprint

Reducing:

• Humans intervention in the reduction of carbon emissions
• These contribute to global warming
• Resulting in melting polar caps, rising seas, desertification,
• provide ‘Sinks’ that can reabsorb carbon emissions. A ‘Sink’ are forests, vegetation or soils.

==2.4 Clean Technology==

Clean Technology - Products, services or processes that reduce waste and require the minimum amount of non-renewable resources

Drivers for cleaning up manufacturing:

• promoting positive impacts
• ensuring neutral impact or minimizing negative impacts through conserving natural resources
• reducing pollution and use of energy
• reducing waste of energy and resources

Legislation - laws. Consider how legislation provides an impetus to manufacturers to clean up manufacturing processes and also how manufacturers react to legislation

End of Pipe Technology - An initial response to reducing the emission of pollutants and creation of waste is adding clean-up technologies to the end of the manufacturing process

Incremental Solutions - Products which are improved and developed over time leading to new versions and generations.

Radical Solutions - Where a completely new product is devised by going back to the roots of a

problem and thinking about a solution in a different way

System of level solution - embraces the idea of a solution to the problem of pollution and waste as a whole and is concerned with the interrelationship rather than individual elements

==2.5 Green Design==

Green Design - The product- role of designer: The starting point for many green products is to improve

an existing product by redesigning aspects of it to address environmental objectives

Incremental innovation - is sometimes referred to as continuous improvement, and the business attitude associated with it is ‘inside-the-box’ thinking. A simple product may be improved (in terms of better performance or lower costs) through the use of higher performance components or materials

Radical innovation - involves the development of new key design elements such as change in a product component combined with a new architecture for linking components

Consumer Pressure

Design objectives for green products:

1. increasing efficiency in the use of materials, energy and other resources;
2. minimizing damage or pollution from the chosen materials
3. reducing to a minimum any long-term harm caused by use of the product
4. ensuring that the planned life of the product is most appropriate in environmental terms and that the product functions efficiently for its full life
5. taking full account of the effects of the end disposal of the product
6. ensuring that the packaging and instructions encourage efficient and environmentally friendly use
7. minimizing nuisances such as noise or smell
8. analysing and minimizing potential safety hazards
9. minimizing the number of different materials used in a product
   10. labelling of materials so they can be identified for recycling.

Evaluating:

1. raw materials used
2. packaging
3. incorporation of toxic chemicals
4. energy in production and use
5. end-of-life disposal issues
6. production methods
7. atmospheric pollutants.

Strategies for designing Green Products:

• raw materials used
• packaging
• incorporation of toxic chemicals
• energy in production and use
• end-of-life disposal issues
• production methods
• atmospheric pollutants.

Prevention principle:

• Knowledge based
• Actual risk of causing harm can be assessed
• Occurrence of damage is probable if no measure is taken
• Regulation emission framework defines substantial criteria (eg. emissions thresholds)
• Definition of acceptable risk is primarily science based

Precautionary principle:

• Uncertainty
• Risk cannot be calculated and is only a suspected risk of causing harm
• Occurrence of damage is uncertain and cannot be predicted clearly
• Regulation through procedural requirements
• Social acceptance of the risk is considered

==2.6 Eco Design==

Eco-design - a more comprehensive approach than green design because it attempts to focus on all three broad environmental categories—materials, energy and pollution/waste. This makes eco-design more complex and difficult to do

Cradle to grave - design considers the environmental effects of a product all of the way from manufacture to use to disposal

Cradle to cradle - can be defined as the design and production of products of all types in such a way that at the end of their life, they can be truly recycled (upcycled), imitating nature's cycle with everything either recycled or returned to the earth

LCA (Life Cycle Assessment):

1. Pre-production
2. Production
3. Distribution (including packaging)
4. Utilisation
5. Disposal

UNEP Ecodesign Manual - the United nations released an Eco-design manual also known as Design for

Sustainability (D4S). The major concerns outlined in the UNEP Ecodesign Manual were

to:

• increase recyclability
• reduce energy requirements
• maximise use of renewable resources
• reduce creation and use of toxic materials
• reduce material requirements of goods and services
• increase product durability and reduced planned obsolescence

Environmental impact assessment matrix:

• water
• soil pollution and degradation
• air contamination
• noise
• energy consumption
• consumption of natural resources
• pollution
• effect on ecosystems

Converging technologies - The synergistic merging of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technologies and cognitive science. A typical example of converging technology is the smart phone in terms of the materials required to create it, its energy consumption, disassembly, recyclability and the portability of the devices it incorporates