Week 6

During W6, we learnt more about the Product Life Cycle and Cradle to Cradle design.

Product Life Cycle
It is crucial for us to understand more about the product life cycle as we factor in the environmental sustainability of a product. Sustainable design is the approach to creating products and services that have considered the environmental, social and economic impacts from the initial phase through to the end of life. Some examples of sustainable design strategies include using non-toxic, sustainably produced or recycled materials, as well as using energy efficient processes. Sustainable designs also aim to allow the product to last longer and it is designed such that it is able to be reused and recycled.

The product life cycle consists of six stages: Raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, use and disposal. We were given the example of the life cycle of paper to help us to better understand a product’s life cycle.

1. Raw Materials/Extraction

This is the first stage of the product life cycle. In the example of the life cycle of paper, this stage includes the harvesting of forests or plantations, the cutting of trees into logs, and the transportation, debarking and chipping of logs.

2. Manufacturing and production

The second stage of the product life cycle is manufacturing and production. In the life cycle of paper, this stage includes cooking and processing of fibers from wood chips, bleaching and cleaning of pulp, extraction of water, rolling of fibers into paper sheets and heating, and lastly cutting paper to size.

3. Packaging

This is the third stage of the product life cycle. In the life cycle of paper, this is the stage where finished paper products are packed according to size, colour, texture and design, as well as being packaged into boxes, which are also made of paper, and wrapped in plastic films.

4. Distribution

The fourth stage of the product life cycle, in this stage paper products get transported to dealers/ distributors/ shops in many countries, ready to be sold to consumers. Warehousing and retailing are also considered part of this stage.

5. Use

This is the fifth stage of the product life cycle. This is the stage in which paper products are used by consumers. Paper is used for writing and printing books, while magazines and newspapers are printed on paper.

6. Disposal

The final stage of the product life cycle, this is where it is either reused, recycled or disposed. Reusing includes giving it to other people for free or selling it at a reduced cost. Recycling includes recovering and recycling used pacers to produce other products. Disposing is when products end up in landfills or incinerators.



Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Design
Even though we describe the product life cycle as a circle, it is often not connected as we are not able to link disposal back to extraction.

Most of the products used in our daily lives follow the cradle to grave product system. It starts with resource extraction, product manufacturing and ends up in graves when the product is discarded into landfills or incinerators.

The Cradle to Cradle design is a biomimetic approach to the design of products and systems that emulates nature’s process. The design concept is modelled based on nature such as the carbon cycle which has no end point.

It is a biological cycle in which waste material in an old product becomes the ‘food’ for a new product. Materials are returned to the biosphere in the form of compost or other nutrients from which new materials can be created.

The main focus of C2C is to eliminate the concept of waste by design.

1. Nutrients become nutrients again

In nature the process of every organism involved in a living system contributes to the eco-cycle directly or indirectly. The blossoms of a tree fall to the ground where they are degraded and become food for other organisms. One man’s trash is another man's treasure.

2. Use of renewable energies

The first industrial revolution drew energy mainly from fossil fuels that were created millions of years ago. Systems powered by renewable energies such as solar energy do not have a long-term impact on our children’s future.

3. Celebrate diversity

Diversity makes ecosystems more responsive and resilient in changing conditions.

During the lesson, we also completed an activity on how to incorporate some C2C ideas into our final product. In our case, it is that of a vaccine storage box with modular parts that are interchangeable.

Figure 1. Product Life Cycle of a Vaccine Storage Box

1. Raw Material

The material we have chosen is ThermaCork. ThermaCork is made from pierces of cork that would otherwise have been wasted and does so with very little use of external energy resources. After cork is harvested off the oak tree, the cork and wood are separated. All parts of the cork are used in the production of ThermaCork.

2. Manufacturing

Cork is deposited in a silo and carried in a channel which vibrates to separate the impurities. This process creates dust and the dust produced is use as fuel for production. The cork pieces that remain after the vibrating sorting process are then grounded up into granules that are put into block shaped form. Superheat steam is injected into the block to expand it. After the block is heated, water is injected into the core to cool it and it is allowed to rest for 10 days to stabilize its dimensions.

3. Packaging

Clean unwanted newspaper is used to cover the ThermaCork to prevent damage from the weather during shipment.

4. Distribution

They are transported by trucks and by ships rather than airplanes, as airplanes tend to have a greater carbon footprint, and are less sustainable.

5. Use

It can be used to make the outer box and modular parts of the insulated vaccine holder due its ability to take extremely low temperatures like -180°C and has a really low thermal conductivity of 0.04 W/m.K, which is lower than the thermal conductivities of other materials like rubber, a well-known insulator. Thus, it will be used to transport vaccines to other countries across the world.

6. Disposal

Since it is made from what would have been waste material, when it is disposed, it has little effect due to having a negligible carbon footprint. Other than that, the material chosen is biodegradable, and after the lifecycle of the product, it can be returned to nature without any major environmental impacts. Majority of the process of the production of Thermacork is also environmentally friendly to aim to have a net carbon footprint.

The C2C principles we have applied are Nutrients become Nutrients again, and Renewable Energy. The raw material is biodegradable, and it also comes from used wine cork. Besides that, superheated steam is generated from the dust produced during the process, which uses the principle of use of renewable energy.