Precious point. There are movements asking to governments to recognize the right of customers to repair their product, hence banishing all the practices that oblige you to change a full product for a missing piece. The separability of components is a key element.
Yes, totally agree. I think the right to repair, and right to deconstruct (end of life) should be law. And ability for the User to deconstruct a product has to be be rule No.1 in Product Design.
Totally agree, ecodesign of a product is a key issue nowdays. Policies as taxes, incentives and penalisation should be introduced in order to achieve it. I would add that clear expecification are needed from manufacturers in terms of recycling.
What about a law that demands manufacturers to say whether an item is easily deconstructable? This would be introduced in the packaging and they would need to specify whether the item is easily reacconditioned or not, or whether it is easily separated for recycling...
maybe with a colour scale?
Again, yep, totally agree. I think there needs to be an EU system for labelling how "Eco/Green" a Product is. From raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, shipping, and recycling - ie how much into the Circular Economy that Product is. So Users can assess for themselves the Green credentials of the Product they want to buy. The hope is that manufacturers would improve their solutions. We have the energy rating system for electric products, and that saw OEMs improve their output.
Totally agree. Plus, since the energy rating system was introduced people show more interest in understandig how it works. What about circular economy? The usual citizen doesn't know anything about it. We need to educate about this topic, and this could be a starting point.
Exactly, it made a difference. It made the info transparent to understand. I think initiatives like this, can assist in creating an environment for Eco-Design to thrive in. It shifts the landscape.
One of the problems with plastics products is that they are often made up of 3 or 4 layers different types of plastic that all do different things. Recycling a mix of plastics is very difficult.
I was excited to read of one of the recent Ellen McArthur awards where a plastic developer had changed the surface structure of a single type of plastic allowing it to perform several functions. Meaning that in future products could only require 1 type of plastic - making it much easier to deconstruct/ recycle back to a single type of plastic.
Yep. There is too much mixing of materials at the moment, with a disregard to what happens afterwards. Exactly, material innovation & it's application into a Product is an area which is ripe for innovative ideas. + Bringing them to market quickly to make an impact.
Comments (8)
Precious point. There are movements asking to governments to recognize the right of customers to repair their product, hence banishing all the practices that oblige you to change a full product for a missing piece. The separability of components is a key element.
Yes, totally agree. I think the right to repair, and right to deconstruct (end of life) should be law. And ability for the User to deconstruct a product has to be be rule No.1 in Product Design.
Totally agree, ecodesign of a product is a key issue nowdays. Policies as taxes, incentives and penalisation should be introduced in order to achieve it. I would add that clear expecification are needed from manufacturers in terms of recycling.
What about a law that demands manufacturers to say whether an item is easily deconstructable? This would be introduced in the packaging and they would need to specify whether the item is easily reacconditioned or not, or whether it is easily separated for recycling...
maybe with a colour scale?
Again, yep, totally agree. I think there needs to be an EU system for labelling how "Eco/Green" a Product is. From raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, shipping, and recycling - ie how much into the Circular Economy that Product is. So Users can assess for themselves the Green credentials of the Product they want to buy. The hope is that manufacturers would improve their solutions. We have the energy rating system for electric products, and that saw OEMs improve their output.
Totally agree. Plus, since the energy rating system was introduced people show more interest in understandig how it works. What about circular economy? The usual citizen doesn't know anything about it. We need to educate about this topic, and this could be a starting point.
Exactly, it made a difference. It made the info transparent to understand. I think initiatives like this, can assist in creating an environment for Eco-Design to thrive in. It shifts the landscape.
One of the problems with plastics products is that they are often made up of 3 or 4 layers different types of plastic that all do different things. Recycling a mix of plastics is very difficult.
I was excited to read of one of the recent Ellen McArthur awards where a plastic developer had changed the surface structure of a single type of plastic allowing it to perform several functions. Meaning that in future products could only require 1 type of plastic - making it much easier to deconstruct/ recycle back to a single type of plastic.
Yep. There is too much mixing of materials at the moment, with a disregard to what happens afterwards. Exactly, material innovation & it's application into a Product is an area which is ripe for innovative ideas. + Bringing them to market quickly to make an impact.