Video blog: The Lightbulb Conspiracy

The video “the lightbulb conspiracy” is a documentary about the planned obsoletion of products today. Starting from the industrial revolution where people were able to mass manufacture products that were once hand made. The video shows the impact of mass manufacture on the economy and society. The mass manufacture industry created desires for people that they didn’t necessarily need just because products were readily available. However, this became a problem because the products were manufactured to last forever and once everybody bought what they needed or wanted they no longer bought new products, causing the production to slow down and the economy therefore suffered due to loss of sales. This lead to the Great Depression due to the ceasing of production.

The light bulb conspiracy is one example of planned obseletion. Here was a product that everybody needed in everyday life. Engineers were able to create a lightbulb that could last a very long time. There is even an example of one of these bulbs in a US firestation, it has been burning for over 100 years. So why do lightbulbs these days blow out after a certain amount of hours? Simply because if all lightbulbs were to last forever there would no longer be an industry for it. So the light bulb manufacturers got together to create an agreement pact that all light bulbs cannot have a lifespan of more than a certain amount of hours. This theory carried on into other sectors and soon all products were made to have an expiry date. This meant that production would continue to go on and machines would start cranking again. Soon after, the idea of marketing products was born creating even more desires to buy products, and a trend to buy the newest latest version of that product.

This ideal continues in today’s times but with a negative impact on the environment. With all the manufacturing comes a lot of waste and emissions. And what happens to the waste at the end of it’s life? They get thrown out and cannot be recycled.

The impact of manufacturing on the environment is the responsibility of the engineers and designers. It is up to them to ensure that the products they are making are safe for not only their purpose and demographic but also must keep in mind how the product will be disposed of at the end of its life. In the past manufactures had a cradle to grave mentality, but in recent times with all the environmental issues designers must think in a cradle to cradle mentality. That is; how will the product disassemble, how can it be reused, how can the manufacture of the product reduce emissions. These are all the things a young designer should know.

video blog "giving packaging new life" & "how its made"

In the videos they show how packaging is made and also how they are recycled. It’s a good thing for industrial designers to know so they are aware of what the manufacturing and recycling processes entail. It is useful to know for all so that they know the impact and/or damage done to the environment.

It was interesting to see how aluminium cans are produced and recycled. They are made from very little metal and you can reuse the aluminium as many times as you can without losing any quality. They can be recycled and formed back into sheet metal ready to use for the next batch. The excess cut offs from the stamping is also returned to the recycling plant to be melted down and formed into sheets. Packaging tubes are also made of aluminium and can be used to store creams and gels due to its malleable properties. The protective coating helps to form a barrier between the contents and the metal.

Tetra packs are also really interesting to be seen recycled. I always thought that it couldn’t be recycled due the bonding of foil, cardboard and plastic. But with technology these days the materials can be separated and then recycled.

Another interesting video was seeing how glass bottles are recycled. They are put into different colours so they don’t have to re-colour them. Recycling glass has to be quite precise in that the colours can not be contaminated otherwise it will compromise the quality of the colour, especially with clear glass. They combat this using a camera which photographs the pieces and scans for impurities. The impurities are then blown away with jets.

Cardboard packaging bonds layers of flat and corrugated boards to create thickness and strength while still being lightweight. Cardboard packaging can then be recycled to create newspaper print and toilet paper.

The technology used for sorting and recycling wastes is quite interesting especially the photoscanner and blower technique. Magnets are used to separate the metals from cardboards and plastics. And the technique they use for separating plastic and cardboard is where they ground the materials and put it in a blower, the lighterr materials fall over the edge and the heavier ones are passed through o the next stage.