Video Reflection: The light bulb conspiracy

This video "the light bulb conspiracy" was about how a product is deigned to be used for a limited time and then just becomes "obsolete" so that consumer would have to go back and buy it again. They called this "planned obsolescence", this was first started in the 1920s where a group of business  men got together and decided that having a product that lasted forever was not good for business and so the global cartel was created to reduce the life span of the incandescent light bulb. Many things are done like this and what surprised me was how this is being done around us and we really had no idea how deep the issue was for example the printer had the chip so that it counted how much was printed and then locked so that it was "supposedly broken". Before designing anything the engineers already had the life expectancy in mind from the beginning. Not only that this is a problem in today's society, the dumping of e-waste in Ghana was terrible. I guess what i learnt from this is that designing something more sustainable is really important in today's world. That we need to think about the future of the product being made and somehow not creating waste and just create "nutrients" as said in the movie. This is really important for industrial designers to watch to understand "planned obsolescence" fully and see how much it is impacting in the world around us. I really enjoyed this movie and was amazed at all the information on products having little life expectancy on purpose. I guess this is needed to make the world move forward?

Video Reflection: How its made- packaging

This series "how its made- packaging" was actually pretty interesting seeing how packaging we use everyday were actually produced. It showed the different processes of how different types of packaging was made. The different types of packaging they went through were:

1. Molded pulp containers
2. Glass Bottles
3.Packaging Tube
4.Tetra Pak Containers
5. Card boxes
6. Pharmaceutical Blister Packs.

The two that interest me the most were the pharmaceutical blister packs and the packaging tubes. With the pharmaceutical blister packs they go through a lot of testing to make sure the medicine in the blister pack isn't exposed to moisture and air. With the packaging tubes it started of with a aluminium slug that was a size of a coin and was stretched into a tube. Its important for a designer to watch these videos to better understand the process of different types of packaging and pick out which one better suits what they need to achieve.

Video Reflection: Giving Packaging A new life

This series "giving packaging a new life" was informative on the recycling process of different materials and what they are remade into. The materials they covered were:

1) Paper

2) Tetrapak

3) Tin plate

4) Aluminium 

5) plastic

6) Glass

Each video showed the process they go through to be reused. This is important for a designer to watch and understand because it is now important to keep in mind materials that can be recycled so that the products we design are environmentally friendly and not damaging. 

What interested me was how in the aluminium recycling process it used less energy to recycle in comparison to the actual manufacturing of the aluminium.