Accomplishments:

+ A composting system is established! I put my food waste into a bin and then periodically put it in Johan’s garden compost pile. But, if i didn’t have a nearby friend with land property… and just lived in a single apartment.. what would I do?

Upcoming:

+ A follow up with the trash-burning company, SYSAV. I have contacted them with a few questions I had mentioned in the trash burning video.

+ A follow up with Maria Wall, part of the environmental engineering faculty at LTH. She is currently working on a project dealing with sustainability in homes as well. I contacted her wanting to meet up and get the specific information on what kind of work she does (and maybe how it relates to my research).

Some Pictures:

Garbage pile on the corner of my kitchen counter…

lots and lots of soft plastic packaging

some melon peels drying by the window sill

you gotta love the kitchen

I heart frozen pizza

The wall mosaic that is not growing very fast after all.

(1) What does design have to do with collecting trash?

(2) What is so wrong with throwing something in the trash?

(3) How is keeping trash in your room helping anything… ?

Okay honestly, an invisible jaw of mine drops every time I hear these questions. It really pisses me off that people still think designers just “make things look pretty”. On that note, this research project is more about education rather than scorning, I just had to let a little of that designer fury out.

(1) Industrial designers make products. There is a whole life cycle of a product to consider in addition to aesthetics/appearance.  So when the appearance of a new product is all set, it is manufactured, packaged, shipped, and then sold. Then someone buys that product, uses it, and then (depending on what product) throws it away when he/she is done with it. A product that is thrown away is STILL a product. Someone designed it! It is an industrial designers job to consider the “garbage” process of his/her product too.

Sometimes I wonder, “If I had not gone to design school, would I even care about the life cycle of products?” Probably not. I would probably buy them and toss them out too without even thinking about it. But how many landfills can the earth hold? I don’t want to find out. In this generation, we all start off with a “consumer” mentality. Seriously, from our first diaper (which was designed, mass manufactured, and disposed of). It is kind of creepy to think about, but there is a certain standard of how to interact with products that we start practicing at a very young age>> (1) Buy. (2) Use. (3) Garbage. Let’s change this standard.

(2) Excess trash and overflowing landfills = pollution. Very bad. Very Very bad. A lot of products that have been disposed of (made of non-biodegradable materials like plastic) last forever. So if we keep filling up landfills with trash that we throw away, we are going to run out of space. Re-visit my research presentation for more on this: “Closed Loop” Experiment Presentation

I think eventually people will learn to see products as a USER rather than consumer. There is a big difference between the word “user” and “consumer”. The word “user” means that someone bought a product and is using it for a function/purpose. After they use it for that function, what happens? So perhaps the definition implies that a “user” has room to think and decide what happens after a product’s purpose is fulfilled. The word “consumer” is a bit misleading. If you “consume” something, it is gone; you have used it all up. But, this isnt true of most products, when you “consume” them they do not disappear. Yet, we use the word “consumerism” to describe the current economic movement (and mentality).

(3) Keeping the trash in my room is simulating the pollution that is occurring. As a designer, it is really making me think about the future products I may design. What are the things I want to throw away? How can they be designed differently so they are more sustainable and less disposable? Or how I can I make disposable items more biodegradable? How do I feel in this environment? What if every user did not produce any trash? Are there other purposes for items I throw away? It is a process and an experience that I am going through for inspiration.

Hopefully this post was a little educational about why I am doing this research project. Whew sorry that was a long one.

So say we define garbage as an “unwanted substance”. Generally this definition rings true, right? It is SO easy as a consumer to get trapped in this “oh well, throw it out” attitude of just throwing everything that seems useless and meaningless in the trash. I have definitely been struggling with that so far. It is so frustrating because sometimes I just want to crumple something up and …. then I remember I should think about a better way to use it if I can or else I will have to look at that crumpled mess for a whiiile. Going a little further… why is “garbage” so unwanted?  Is it unwanted because it can no longer serve its purpose (like a broken dish) ? Is it unwanted because it no longer has a purpose to serve (like empty coke can) ? Is it unwanted because it is in excess (like dinner leftovers) ? Obviously, there are many different ways to categorize garbage, none that are very fascinating. To cut to the chase, there are many reasons why consumers feel garbage is unwanted.  But let’s have a look past these consumer perspectives on garbage for a bit…

Let’s redefine garbage as an “unwanted substance that no longer serves any purpose”. So, in this definition a broken dish is not garbage if it can be re-used to make a tiled mosaic. An empty coke can is not garbage if it can be recycled. Dinner leftovers (depending on the meal of course) can be compost that can enrich a garden.

Okay… so then what is garbage? From my experiment so far these are the items that I have been collecting that are TRULY garbage:

+ clear plastic packaging that was on food products

+ plastic packaging that held frozen vegetables

+ plastic dishes that held frozen meat

+ a paper bag from a bakery that has powdered sugar inside

Can living with any of these things be harmful? I should do my best to wipe out all of the sugar inside the paperbag and rise it out so there is no more food residue inside because maybe it will attract flies/ants. But other than that products that we live with everyday are made out of plastic and paper, how are these things any different? The lamp above my bed is plastic, am I in danger of sleeping under it? If I compost all my food leftovers as I have been doing then the rest of the trash SHOULD hypothetically be safe. Or just as safe as any other home that has a number of products made of plastics and other fabricated materials.

What do you guys think? I think that physically, my health is totally unaffected by the garbage. Perhaps mentally seeing it and associating it with other things… makes me feel less healthy? Maybe I would start to feel less clean? For example I associate garbage with a bad smell and dirty alleys in cities that have disease-infected rats. So mentally, maybe it could really get to me…

1: Break this idea of “containment”! If something is not visible, it does not exist. Is this true? Obviously not, we have all played hide and seek and sat there with our hands covering our eyes thinking no one could see us. Or at least I did. But if you take the trash out every Friday, it is like it just disappears out of your life. It does not disappear really.. it is just hidden in a different area polluting the earth. Just because we don’t see it.. it is out of our minds. Since things will eventually collect in my apartment, I won’t be able to ignore the garbage.

2: Get inspired. I am researching ways to make living a sustainable lifestyle easier. Specifically, in the home. So what better way than to do it myself? Since “home is where the heart is”, I think some people really need a change of heart when it comes to preserving the environment. Affect people where they are most comfortable and make them step out of their comfort zone! That’s where the magic happens.

3: Inspire others. you can do it too! Hopefully people read this blog and really think about what is going on.