Growing a Better Tomorrow with Today's Waste

While I was at the gym today I couldn’t help but notice all the plastic water bottles that people were drinking from, including me. After reading Ann Thorpe’s The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability and how “all artifacts begin and end in the natural environment” I couldn’t help but wonder, how many of these water bottles will end up in a land fill? How many will be recycled?  Majority of people will probably just finish their workouts and throw their plastic water bottles in the trash without giving it another thought. This in turn made me think about McDonough and Braungart’s Waste Equals Food and how they mention that some products are “unmarketable” because the materials that compose the product are hazardous and cannot be easily broken down.  One such product is Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used for food, beverage and other liquid containers. McDonough and Braungart  explain that until we have developed technological ways of detoxifying them we need to use creative measures to dispose of these hazardous materials.  One solution that was given was to have safe repositories sites where the manufacture of the material maintains the product until cost-effective detoxification technologies have been made. 

Another more creative way to reuse plastics, rubbers and glass is by architect Michael Reynolds who builds “Earthships.”  An Earthship is a sustainable home made of recycled materials.  They are constructed using the byproducts of cans, bottles and tires. They make their own electricity, heat and cool themselves naturally via solar and thermal dynamics.  They harvest their own water from rain and snow melt and produce a significant amount of food. Earthships can be built in any part of the world, in any climate and is the most versatile and economical sustainable green building design in the world.

While having an entirely green building may not be suitable for everyone, there are some initiatives that people and designers can make when wanting to go green or get LEED points. LEED which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design which is part of the U.S. Green Building Council and is a framework for assessing building performance and meeting sustainability goals. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built, and operated. USGBC is best known for the development of LEED they are also know for the program Clean Production Action (CPA) GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals is a chemical screening method that compares that focuses on hazard reduction and informed substitution.  This new method also encourages the design, manufacture and the use of safer chemicals.  The benefits of conducting a GreenScreen assessment include:

• Providing a better understanding of a product’s potential risk profile

• Supporting business value when comparative hazard assessments lead to educated substitutions and continual improvements

• Providing an easy way to communicate the hazard level to a non-technical audience

Recently, USGBC updated their online reference guides to help promote eco-friendly building practices worldwide. This included an interactive web tool to explain the LEED Green Building Rating System and a web application equating the rating system with a nutrition label.

The manufacturing industry is a large and complicated process.  It’s up to architects, designers and owners to apply enough pressure to change the status quo of eco-friendly products. Design to further the green-friendly movement. When you finally decide to go green here are a few questions to consider:

Start by finding out about the product components: Does it contain recycled content? What chemicals were used in their production?

Ask questions about the manufacturing process: What chemicals are involved in the manufacturing process? How much energy and water is consumed to make the product?

Don’t forget about the life-cycle of a product: How long will the product and its components last? Are parts of the product biodegradable or compostable?