Annie Leonard - The Story of Electronics

The focus of this video is designing for the dump. The main issue within the electronics industry is that companies and designers are creating products that have extremely short lifecycles and will always go to waste quickly so that you are encouraged to buy new products. Like most things, electronics always start out in mines as raw material. They are then sent all around the world in order to create parts and components. All throughout these stages, the levels of pollution are extremely high and there is an immense amount of waste produced that just goes to landfill. For example, when IBM corporation workers, making computer chips and components, were tested for health and well-being and results showed that all of these workers were about 40% more unhealthy than the average person.

The idea of toxins in and toxins out is an extremely large focus of this video. The issue is that all of these large electronics manufacturers are using very harsh and harmful chemicals and materials in their products, and instead of spending the extra money to create cleaner & healthier working environments or develop methods of creating components without using these harmful chemicals and materials, the companies are simply using the health of the workers and the general public. This is clearly a very unethical practice but because the companies have so much power and essentially make all the rules. 

When old products are disposed of, if they are not turned into landfill locally, they are being shipped overseas where the valuable materials are extracted and then the rest is just burned off (destroying the environment in that country). There are 25 million tons of e-waste each year which gets dumped, burned or recycled (not green recycling). The idea that Annie Leonard is pressing upon these companies is that the laws/rules should be changed so that the companies who create the mess should be responsible for cleaning it up. This seems like a very fair idea, but realistically it will take a very large force to convince these corporations.

Annie Leonard - The Story of Bottled Water

The main argument of this video is bottled water versus tap water: why is it that we buy bottled water when we can tap water for free? The reason why people buy bottled water, and more importantly why the bottled water industry even exists at all, is because companies have created what is known as ‘manufactured demand’. This is the concept the companies have essentially created this artificial demand within the minds of consumers, forcing them to believe that bottled water is far better than regular tap water and is a necessity. After some testing was done, results show that with a blind taste test, the tap water actually tastes better than the bottled water and is more pure. An interesting fact is that some bottled water companies just used filtered tap water anyway so it is almost no different to what comes out of a tap. 

Bottled water costs 2000 times more than tap water but it is still sold more than a quarter billion times each week in the US alone. This manufactured demand was originally created using scare tactics telling the community that tap water was unsafe and that bottled water was necessary. The end result is one of the most environmentally damaging products in the entire world. At every stage during the product lifestyle, it is harmful to the environment. During production, it is damaging the environment through the use of chemicals and oils in producing the bottles, and once the bottles are used, they 80% are turned to local landfill  in most ways it is less regulated and even though it is 2000x the cost, it is still sold a quarter billion a week in the US. Manufacture demand - make people buy things they do not need at all. They used to scare people into being WITHOUT the bottled water. Bottled water is one of the most environmentally damaging products in the world. All throughout the production process, it is damaging the environment. 

Another method of disposal is sending shiploads of used bottles to India where they are being downcycled. In the end, they all end up being thrown out regardless. A billion people don’t even have access to water yet the companies are spending millions to try and take away our right to clean, free water and create a manufactured demand that realistically, nobody wants or needs.

Annie Leonard - The Story of Cosmetics

Annie Leonard focuses predominately on the concept of “toxics in, toxics out”. Theres no doubt that when you use anything toxic in a product (in the cosmetics industry at least), it will stay there throughout the process and afterwards. It is also a main focus that there is not anything being done to stop this heavy reliance on toxic chemicals and materials. In the cosmetics industry, a very large problem is that only 20% of the chemicals used are inspected for safety but despite this, we still use products that contain these harmful chemicals each and every day without thinking about it at all. inspected 20% of the chemicals for safety, yet we still use them everyday without considering it at all. Despite the large amount of choices of different products, we are not actually given the choice of a safer option (and yes, all the organic options tend to be full of chemicals anyway) In the end, it comes down to the opinions and rules of the companies and governments. As consumers and members of society, all we have the power to do is help convince the companies and governments to change the regulations regarding the use of harmful chemicals within cosmetic products. Although there are regulations regarding the disposal of waste materials and things of that nature, there have not yet been any laws that actually   prevent the use of these harmful materials. In fact, since 1938, only 8 of over 12,000 ingredients that go into cosmetics have been banned. 

Another large loop-hole within the system is that the cosmetic industry makes its own regulations and rules. With this, it means that they are the ones who regulate them and therefore do not even have to follow the laws they make. This means that even when these large companies say that they are coming up with new, environmentally healthy products that do not contain chemical agents, they are still doing it and sometimes do not even have to change anything at all. Many European governments and companies have started making products that legitimately do not use harmful chemicals and it this is the first step to getting rid of these chemicals all together.

My Design Career

So why do I want to be a designer? To put it simply, I want to be an architect, I'm just using industrial design to get me there. So far within my time in the industrial design course, I have not really been tempted to change my mind and stick with IDES but that's not really a bad thing at all. The way I see it now, I will be approaching architecture with an element of product/industrial design. I think one of the aspects that will be most different to architecture is the fact that industrial design focuses on the way users interact with products and the way the products make people feel. I personally think that I will be able to take this element of human focus and twist it with my architectural studies to create concepts that are both architecturally sound but introduce a higher level of human interaction and interest. I would like to create environments that encapsulate people and make them feel safe, comfortable and appreciative of the quality and thought that goes into developing the environment. I believe that it's the little things that make the biggest difference in the end and I have come to notice that industrial design seems to take this idea into great detail and consider it to be extremely important in order to create successful products. I also feel that sometimes these small details go unnoticed and that users need to realise how much thought an work goes into a design.

I have chosen a career in design (as a broad topic) because I love the concept of expressing yourself through products or buildings, using line, colour shape, texture and all that other wonderful stuff as a means of expression is an idea that I want to keep close to me. I don't really see myself enjoying anything else (in terms of work) as much as designing. I always look at current designs and see problems, or simply see the way the designer has approached the situation and think "why can't someone change this?" or "it would be pretty cool if.." and I think that design will be the best way to put my mark on the scene as such. If I were an architect, I would most likely see current designs and the way architects are using materials and technology and then try and take my own crack at using these materials and technologies to create designs that nobody has ever seen before and that grab interest immediately.

I see myself as becoming a very minimalist designer. I have an obsession with cleanliness and I love it when designers are able to create powerful effects by using very simple lines and shapes. I hope I can successfully get into an architecture career so I can express myself and hopefully change the world of design. But then again, isn't that what every designer wants to do?

Design Excellence Project - Reflections (Final)