Amy Smith has an ideal proportion of serving the toher 90% as well as de-tech concepts. She tends to encourage local materials to address tthe needs in developing countries. For example, above there is the tin can as a hand sheller that saves the fingers from finger-breaking work. There are many waste streams including loads of corn husks and sugar cane that become the primary input for creating useful things like charcoal. There are even more simple designs such as the ceramic pot-in-a-pot that actually serves as a refrigerator. Or how about using cotton cloth as a first-pass filter for water? All of these engineered solutions appear, to me, as simply beautiful answers for a need that is real.
But we are at MIT. Our trash can’s composition is just a little bit different than those in other countries. I am starting to think, however, about MY local materials: computers, cell phones, coffee cups, tech-trash, the Tech. What can I do to address a need in the city of Cambridge that also employs these loads of waste we continue to generate? There is a large variety of technologies that have begun to lose their place as newer, smaller, and more sexy looking products rush in to take their place. What are some examples of technologies that will soon need to be recycled, upcycyled, remanufactured, or simply repurposed?
THE CRT is going out of style. Where is all this lead-tainted glass going to? (They are acting as vitruous nuclear repository material… leaden glass balls filled with nuclear waste!)
THE WALKMAN has been replaced (and so have the CDs to go with it). iPod is a dynasty.
BOOKS and LIBRARIES are being pushed out by the Internet.
What does it mean that we have begun to “recycle” through redesigning a product? Does it mean that we are de-technologizing because we have skipped the energy intensive process of try to transform materials back into raw materials? Can we just wash our plastics and return them to the manufacturer to be refilled like a glass coca-cola bottle? With all the technology that has become waste, how can we build a new product using technical parts that will also serve as a less technical object? There is definitely more brain storming needed on the topic…
