The problem of waste: what we design to throw away
As we continue this series on the problem of waste in design, we come to the topic of what we design to throw away. We’ve covered some less obvious subjects like those of sacrifice zones and marginalized communities and I put those first because I wanted to make clear that design isn’t just about what we create. It is also about how we create, and who we create for. Designers are communicators, whether we like it or not, not only of the value we create for our clients and the users of our products but also of our common values as a culture. However, as we come to the subject of what we create we cannot avoid the topic of what we create to throw away. This is waste, not in an ideological sense, but literally, as in what is discarded.
What is waste?
The first thing we need to do before we can talk about what we design to throw away is to define “waste.” Kate O’Neill’s book, Waste, makes it clear throughout that first and foremost, what waste is is a matter of perspective. It all comes down to value—personal and/or economic—think of the saying “one [person]’s garbage is another [person]’s treasure;” throwing away is what we do when we determine that something has no more value to us, but that doesn’t mean that what we threw out doesn’t still have value down the line. In fact, a crucial part of changing our attitudes about waste will be recognizing that potential value. This is why I speak of waste as a mentality; determining what waste is is culturally and economically determined.
As designers, we create objects that have value to people or that solve a problem that individuals may have. Many factors go into what we design to solve those problems and one of the most important of those factors for global corporations is that of profit. What this ends up meaning then is that, for many of the things we create, impermanence is built into the design—quite literally, the need to throw something away is an integral step on the path to continued profits. So, part of the process of curbing the production of “waste” is to work to redefine what we value as a culture. This is not a task for design alone and as such I will not be laying out any grand plan to transition our culture away from its dependence on consumption. We can, however, have a hand in that transition by demanding that what we design buck that trend. As designers, we have the ability to prioritize products and services that maximize the longevity of use and encourage the reuse of materials and designs rather than creating endlessly new iterations that aren’t compatible with existing products.
What we design to throw away
“The design theorist and philosopher Tony Fry points out that the term consumption inaccurately describes what takes place in capitalist economies. Instead, he says, there is mostly waste.” (Matthew Wisinsky, Design after Capitalism, pg. 105)
Did you know that roughly 75 percent of the carbon footprint associated with a smartphone comes from the extraction and manufacture phase of its life? That means that by the time that phone hits the shelves—and by extension before we have the choice to buy it or not—the vast majority of its ecological impact has already occurred. Extending the lives of electronic devices is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to reducing our environmental impact—a phone that isn’t made a brick after a few software updates is a phone that can serve our needs longer, without needing to be replaced. Each device that we don’t make just to be thrown away as soon as possible means more resources left in the ground, less fuel used to ship products around the world, and fewer people maimed or killed in an effort to extract those resources. Changing this reality will mean upending the paradigm of planned obsolescence.
Phones are perhaps the quintessential twenty-first-century product to illustrate this concept because of their ubiquity and the near necessity of having one in our increasingly connected global culture. Despite the need to have one, smartphones are quite fragile; they break easily due to both physical stresses and software demands. Phones have become an integral part of our culture and economy with every passing year and yet they have much shorter lives than they had 10 or 15 years ago. This is not a coincidence but the product of a built-in shelf life, designed by the manufacturer to ensure continued profits. This artificially short life has been termed planned obsolescence. In short, objects are sold to us as critically important parts of our daily lives but designed to last only a short while so that as users of that product we have to buy another within a relatively small window of time.
Let’s stop and think about that as designers for a moment: whose problem are we solving when we create these products in this way? We’ll stick with phones for a little longer as we consider this. In today’s world, it is nearly impossible to get along without having a smartphone. So you’d think that the problem that we’d be aiming to solve as designers is one of keeping people as connected as they need to be in order to function in their daily lives. However, when the phones that are produced are created to have artificially shortened lifespans that force users to keep coming back and buying again and again, it seems as if the only problem that we are solving is the problem of keeping that phone manufacturer in business. This doesn’t solve a person’s need to stay connected; all it really does is transform that need into a future goal and then use planned obsolescence as a hurdle to impede our ability to achieve that goal. So again, as designers whose problems are we solving? Whose should we be concerned about solving? If items like phones or cars are significant sources of carbon dioxide pollution and contribute to global conflict, should we rethink our priorities? Climate designers have to consider things like the unintended consequences of these short product lifespans, of fast fashion, and of how the consumption habits of the wealthiest affect the people on the other side of the world, or even the planet itself.
For those of us who cannot afford to be buying replacement items all the time, or for those who simply want to consume or buy things less often, using a cheaply made product far beyond its designed life is unfair. Buying cheap is expensive, especially when buying cheap is your only option. When we design using planned obsolescence, what exactly is it that we are designing to throw away? Is it the object? Or is it the freedom of choice of the people that will have to use the objects that we make?
Changing our perspective on waste
“Global trade and the expansion and outsourcing of labour under capitalism could only happen thanks to standardization. The quest for lower production costs and higher profits has driven innovations such as the [shipping] container and the bar code. Just two examples in a range of technologies that are devised to streamline production for optimal economic efficiency. An efficiency that is based on cheap fossil fuels, because what is efficient about a book being designed in Europe, printed in China, and sold in North America?” (Ruben Pater, CAPS LOCK, pg. 86)
How did we get here, to a place where we have grown comfortable spending hard-earned money on objects that we have no choice but to trash eventually? Well, we’ve all seen ads for new products; commercials for iPhones, PlayStations, and vehicles all extol the new features that distinguish one year’s model from the next. Better cameras, better graphics, more cupholders. But this is iteration for iteration’s sake. Very few people buy a new phone simply because the megapixel number is larger; what they really buy is less tangible than that. Ads sell people ideas; they sell people on common values and then attempt to draw people in based on value. Let’s quickly define “value” and “values”. Value is economic in nature—it is measurable. Value can be determined by a simple ratio: the price of a commodity compared to our ability or need to purchase it. Anthropologist David Graeber defines values by contrasting them with commodities. “Just as commodities have economic ‘value’ because they can be compared precisely with other commodities, ‘values’ are valuable because they cannot be compared with anything. They are each considered unique, incommensurable—in a word, priceless.” (Bullshit Jobs, pg. 204)
So, an ad for a car lays out the features of the new model (including cupholders) and then gives you some pricing info so that you can determine value. But even though the ad puts the value front and center, it doesn’t sell you that value—that is, the price of the car. The commercial sells you intangible ideas like freedom, productivity, sex appeal, or even eco-friendliness. If the values draw you in, then you start to consider value. What values we have determines what has value. But this is only applicable in situations where consumers have a choice; in other words, it only works when we have to use that value ratio. This is why if you see an ad for your local electric company the situation is reversed. The value becomes the subtext and values take center stage. A voice-over describes the company’s dedication to ethics, reliability, and responsiveness; cost isn’t included because it isn’t negotiable (by design). The electric company just wants you to associate your bill with the values buzzwords spoken in their advertising.
All of this is important because what we throw away is determined by those same ads. We get rid of the PlayStation 4 for the 5. What happens to the 4 is typically of little consequence if we are determined to get rid of it. We appeal to values when we want someone to consume, but appeal to value when we determine what to rid ourselves of. What we really bought when we purchased the new iPhone was emotional; we don’t throw that out when we get rid of the physical object, we just purchase more of the same with the next one as long as the price is right. Designs—for products and for ads—that tie the physical object into our ephemeral values will help consumers to see the relationship that was always there.
If you are reading this, there is a good chance that you already think this way. Climate-conscious people are more likely to be aware of the connection and thus more likely to hold on to objects longer, attempt to reuse them in some way, delay a purchase until value and values align, or demand that their products last longer and are easier to repair. But as we mentioned earlier, some people have to hold onto objects longer for other reasons like being unable to afford any other way of life. Not everyone has the privilege of waiting until value and values align, not everyone will be convinced by the inevitability of the climate crisis to demand changes to our ever-present system of consumption, and not everyone can design the system to work in any other way but the way it does.
We, however, can redesign that system. Together. We can petition our professional organizations to prioritize changes to our current design paradigm or even lobby politicians to propose laws that enshrine user protections and planet-friendly designs. We can change the way that designers are taught to perform our roles. We can use networks like Climate Designers to spread ideas and share our successes. We, as communicators can galvanize public opinion on issues like right-to-repair laws that give users the ability to extend the lives of these objects. We are stronger together and no action of any size is unimportant, even if that action is limited to sharing entries like this to spread this idea.
It’s important to remember that what defines waste is a matter of perspective, but it is also important to remember that what we waste is a matter of perspective as well. When we design things just to throw them out, we waste more than just those physical objects—we waste people’s lives. So, to wrap up this series we’ll change our perspective on this subject from what we create, to what we can preserve. Let’s tie this up by focusing on the lives of those people who live in the sacrifice zones: they are extremely marginalized communities who exist in the places that we are throwing away. We’ll end this way because, as with everything that we design, what matters, in the end, isn’t the object that we made, but the lives of the people who are affected by it.
What will we design to preserve?
“What are the unintended consequences of design work over time? How does the work impact the planet we live on? The last question is one more designers are thinking about as the realities of global warming and changes in our natural landscape like pollution, droughts, and deforestation reveal. There must be a shift in mindset away from only making beautiful and economically driven work to include a better understanding and a strategy to stop the negative impacts of design work on the planet.” (Eric Benson and Yvette Perullo, Design to Renourish, pg. 1)
The future holds a lot of different paths for us, depending on how we choose to address our changing climate, but not every place that humans currently live is going to be a place that will remain habitable, no matter what we do. That will mean that many will lose their homelands. Not just their homes. Not just their stuff. The places where their people’s culture developed will be underwater or will be washed away or even baked in extreme heat. The people that live in those places are the recipients of our trash, our old clothes, our excess heat production, our air pollution, our (cultural) apathy, and many people’s (sometimes willful) ignorance of their situation. The people of the Maldives, Bangladesh, much of the Middle East, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, and more are living with the possibility that their lands will be sacrificed for the betterment of people elsewhere, thrown away because that is what our global culture does all too often. They live with the uncertainty of what will happen to them. After all, if they have lost their home, where will they go?
What will we and others like us do about it? What future trash will we refuse to design? What will we design to preserve the lands, the rights, and the lives of the humans who most need the assistance of creative problem-solvers? What will our global culture decide to value and when? We don’t have all the answers to these questions; but that doesn’t mean that we can’t begin, even in small ways, to change the way we think about design—shifting our mindset from what we can design to drive a cycle of consumption to what we can design to protect people and their futures here on this planet. It is time that design faces this problem of waste—before even our time to act is thrown away.
So, call-to-action time
Designers of any discipline, who are some designers—or what are some designs—that you have seen that either address the issues of this series? What are some that you have seen that make things worse? Sound off in the comments section over on our Mighty Networks site!
Reading recommendations for this entry: CAPS LOCK by Ruben Pater, Design after Capitalism by Matthew Wisinsky, and Design to Renourish by Eric Benson and Yvette Perullo
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This entry was written by
Matt McGillvray
Matt is a designer and illustrator living near Portland, Maine, and has been working for more than a decade doing branding, illustration, web design, print design, social media posts, and even a little SEO.
When not designing he’s usually reading, writing, or running. His current big writing project is a book about design and climate change. He is a chronic teller of puns and will not apologize for that.