Dear all,
I agree that it is often unclear as to which behavioural or design options
are more sustainable than others. If we consider wider system impact then it
could well be that avoiding the energy, transportation, heating and
in-direct resource usage of re-cycling suggests buying new as a preferable
course of action. Attempts to judge best environmental practice still too
often fail to embrace the wider knock on effects of actions.
It can even be argued that some incremental moves executed in the name of
sustainability yield adverse impact upon the planet if regarded as a whole.
James Lovelock argues that some legislative moves to restrict acid rain, for
example, could possibly have worsened global warming rather than making
things better.
The focus of my research is the application of the understanding of Complex
Systems upon Sustainable Design and the loud message is that everything is
connected to everything else and no decision can be made in isolation
without a full understanding of the wide (and usually global) impact of our
actions. I begin to think that it is not possible to accurately quantify
environmental benefit or harm in any meaningful way given the domino effect
of even the smallest of decisions......
Mark Ransom
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bob Logan
Sent: 10 May 2012 16:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A sweet sustainability initiative
Hi Terry - The throw away solution certainly maximizes corporate profits. I
am a user and admirer of Apple Inc., even a shareholder but I have a
conflict. When my recharging cable became frayed and I brought it to the
Apple Store to get it repaired the solution was to replace it with a brand
new recharging cable carefully packaged with a lot of cardboard and plastic
that I immediately discarded in the store and hopefully was but into a
recycling bin. I would have been happy if they had replaced my cable with a
refurbrished one, and repaired my cable to pass on to the next customer with
a frayed recharging cable.If I had a Repair Cafe in my town Toronto I would
have gone there. I cannot possibly imagine how you could suggest that
perhaps "the sustainability winner might be with throw away and buy newer
goods." Perhaps you would care to suggest why you suspect the throw away
solution is more sustainable. I just do not see it. With kind regards - Bob
On 2012-05-10, at 10:33 AM, Terence Love wrote:
> Hi Bob,
>
> Thanks. Nice story.
>
> Wondering which is more sustainable this Dutch initiative or
> conventional throwing away and replacing with newer goods?
>
> The answer doesn't seem that obvious to me, and I suspect the
> sustainability winner might be with throw away and buy newer goods.
>
> Has anyone got any sound data?
>
> Best wishes,
> Terry
> ==
> Dr Terence Love
> Love Design and Research
> PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
> Western Australia 6030
> [log in to unmask]
> +61 (0)4 3497 5848
> =
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
> related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Bob Logan
> Sent: Thursday, 10 May 2012 8:50 PM
> To: Dr Terence Love
> Subject: A sweet sustainability initiative
>
> Dear Designers - fyi - a very sweet solution from the Netherlands -
> Bob
>
> ______________________
>
> Robert K. Logan
> Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD
> Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto
> www.physics.utoronto.ca/Members/logan
>
> An Effort to Bury a Throwaway Culture One Repair at a Time
>
>
> Description:
> http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/09/world/AMSTERDAM-1/AMSTE
> RDAM-1
> -articleLarge.jpg
>
> Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
>
> Gathered around tables in what appeared to be delicate operations,
> participants tried to fix items that had been set for the trash.
>
>
> By SALLY McGRANE
>
>
> Published: May 8, 2012
>
>
> AMSTERDAM - An unemployed man, a retired pharmacist and an upholsterer
> took their stations, behind tables covered in red gingham.
> Screwdrivers and sewing machines stood at the ready. Coffee, tea and
cookies circulated.
> Hilij Held, a neighbor, wheeled in a zebra-striped suitcase and
> extracted a well-used iron. "It doesn't work anymore," she said. "No
steam."
>
>
> <javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/05/09/w
> orld/A
> MSTERDAM-2.html','AMSTERDAM_2_html','width=720,height=563,scrollbars=y
> es,too lbars=no,resizable=yes')> Description:
> http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/09/world/AMSTERDAM-2/AMSTE
> RDAM-2
> -articleInline.jpg
>
>
> Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
>
>
> One man came in to have the charger for his laptop repaired.
>
> Ms. Held had come to the right place. At Amsterdam's first Repair
> Cafe, an event originally held in a theater's foyer, then in a rented
> room in a former hotel and now in a community center a couple of times
> a month, people can bring in whatever they want to have repaired, at
> no cost, by volunteers who just like to fix things.
>
> Conceived of as a way to help people reduce waste, the Repair Cafe
> concept has taken off since its debut two and a half years ago. The
> Repair Cafe Foundation has raised about $525,000 through a grant from
> the Dutch government, support from foundations and small donations,
> all of which pay for staffing, marketing and even a Repair Cafe bus.
>
> Thirty groups have started Repair Cafes across the Netherlands, where
> neighbors pool their skills and labor for a few hours a month to mend
> holey clothing and revivify old coffee makers, broken lamps, vacuum
> cleaners and toasters, as well as at least one electric organ, a
> washing machine and an orange juice press.
>
> "In Europe, we throw out so many things," said Martine Postma, a
> former journalist who came up with the concept after the birth of her
> second child led her to think more about the environment. "It's a
> shame, because the things we throw away are usually not that broken.
> There are more and more people in the world, and we can't keep handling
things the way we do.
>
> "I had the feeling I wanted to do something, not just write about it,"
> she said. But she was troubled by the question: "How do you try to do
> this as a normal person in your daily life?"
>
> Inspired by a design exhibit <http://www.platform21.nl/page/4315/en>
> about the creative, cultural and economic benefits of repairing and
> recycling, she decided that helping people fix things was a practical
> way to prevent unnecessary waste.
>
> "Sustainability discussions are often about ideals, about what could be,"
> Ms. Postma said. "After a certain number of workshops on how to grow
> your own mushrooms, people get tired. This is very hands on, very
> concrete. It's about doing something together, in the here and now."
>
> While the Netherlands puts less than 3 percent of its municipal waste
> into landfills, there is still room for improvement, according to Joop
> Atsma, the state secretary for infrastructure and the environment.
>
> "The Repair Cafe is an effective way to raise awareness that discarded
> objects are indeed still of value," Mr. Atsma wrote in an e-mail.
>
> "I think it's a great idea," said Han van Kasteren, a professor at the
> Eindhoven University of Technology <http://www.tue.nl/en/> who works
> on waste issues. "The social effect alone is important. When you get
> people together to do something for the environment, you raise
> consciousness. And repairing a vacuum cleaner is a good feeling."
>
> That was certainly true for the woman who brought her 40-year-old
> vacuum, bought when she was a newlywed, to a Tuesday night Repair
> Cafe. "I am very glad, very glad," she said as John Zuidema, 70, sawed
> off the vacuum's broken nozzle. "My husband died, and there are all
> these little things around the house that he used to fix."
>
> To some, the project's social benefits are as appealing as its
> ecological mission. "What's interesting for us is that it creates new
> places for people to meet, not just live next to each other like
> strangers," said Nina Tellegen, the director of the DOEN Foundation
> <http://www.doen.nl/web/home-1.htm> , which provided the Repair Cafe
> with a grant of more than $260,000 as part of its "social cohesion"
> program, initiated in the wake of the political murders of Pim
> Fortuyn, a politician, in 2002, and Theo van Gogh, a filmmaker, in
> 2004. "That it's linked to sustainability makes it even more interesting."
>
> Ms. Tellegen added that older people in particular find a niche at the
> Repair Cafe.
>
> "They have skills that have been lost," she said. "We used to have a
> lot of people who worked with their hands, but our whole society has
> developed into something service-based."
>
> Evelien H. Tonkens, a sociology professor at the University of
> Amsterdam, agreed. "It's very much a sign of the times," said Dr.
> Tonkens, who noted that the Repair Cafe's anti-consumerist,
> anti-market, do-it-ourselves ethos is part of a more general movement
> in the Netherlands to improve everyday conditions through grass-roots
social activism.
>
> "It's definitely not a business model," Ms. Postma said. She added
> that because the Repair Cafe caters to people who find it too
> expensive to have their items fixed, it should not compete with existing
repair shops.
>
> The Repair Cafe Foundation provides interested groups with information
> to help get them started, including lists of tools, tips for raising
> money and marketing materials. Ms. Postma has received inquiries from
> France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, South Africa and Australia.
>
> Tijn Noordenbos, a 62-year-old artist in Delft, started a Repair Cafe
> there four months ago.
>
> "I like to repair things," he said, noting that the repair shops of
> his younger days had all but vanished. "Now, if something breaks, you
> take it back to the store and they say: 'We'll send it to the factory
> and it costs you 100 euros just to check out the problem. It's better
> if you buy a new one.' "
>
> William McDonough, an architect, said, "What happened with planned
> obsolescence is that it became mindless - just throw it away and don't
> think about it." His "cradle to cradle" design philosophy, which
> posits that things should be built so that they can be taken apart and
> the raw materials reused (though not necessarily repaired ad nauseam),
also inspired Ms.
> Postma.
>
> "The value of the Repair Cafe is that people are going back into a
> relationship with the material things around them," Mr. McDonough said.
>
> Take, for example, Sigrid Deters's black H&M miniskirt with a hole in it.
>
> "This cost 5 or 10 euros," about $6.50 to $13, she said, adding that
> she had not mended it herself because she was too clumsy. "It's a
> piece of nothing, you could throw it out and buy a new one. But if it
> were repaired, I would wear it."
>
> Marjanne van der Rhee, a Repair Cafe volunteer who hands out data
> collection forms and keeps the volunteers fortified with coffee, said:
> "Different people come in. With some, you think, maybe they come because
they're poor.
> Others look well-off, but they are aware of environmental concerns.
> Some seem a little bit crazy."
>
> Theo van den Akker, an accountant by day, had taken on the case of the
> nonsteaming iron. Wearing a T-shirt that read "Mr. Repair Café," Mr.
> van den Akker removed the plastic casing, exposing a nest of multicolored
wires.
>
> As he did, Ms. Held and Ms. van der Rhee discussed the traditional
> Surinamese head scarves that Ms. Held, who was born in Suriname, makes
> for a living.
>
> When Mr. van den Akker put the iron back together, two parts were left
> over
> - no matter, he said, they were probably not that important. He
> plugged the frayed cord into a socket. A green light went on. Rusty water
poured out.
> Finally, it began to steam.
>
>
> A version of this article appeared in print on May 9, 2012, on page A6
> of the New York edition with the headline: An Effort to Bury A
> Throwaway Culture One Repair at a Time.
______________________
Robert K. Logan
Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD
Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto
www.physics.utoronto.ca/Members/logan
|
