:: Specific Design Brief

LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

LU 1: COLLECTING MORE

PRODUCT DESIGN UK

GENERIC DESIGN CONTEXT
It has been recommended for many years that reducing, reusing and recycling provide many opportunities for environmental improvements in our own and other countries and in product manufacture. Design and make a product that uses at least one of these three criteria.

SPECIFIC DESIGN BRIEF
New targets are soon to be introduced for the recycling and recovery of packaging waste. Although it is likely to be possible to meet the plastic recycling target for 2006 from industrial waste sources, more metal and glass will have to be extracted from the domestic waste stream. Design an appropriate separation and storage system for household use.

CLIENT DETAILS
Eventually all householders in the UK will be required to play a part in recycling. The product must therefore be suitable for a wide range of households from city dwellers in flats and high density housing to rural situations. The product should be designed with local UK manufacture in mind, although it is recognised that current economic pressures tend to drive manufacturing to areas with lower labour costs, e.g. the Far East.

Your first point of contact will be Loughborough University. Initially contact Eddie Norman (email [email protected] or by phone 01509-222659).

SUSTAINABILITY ISSUES
• Reducing the quantity of materials entering landfill sites can significantly reduce the environmental impact of people in the UK.
• The manufacture of an appropriately designed unit would provide worthwhile employment.
• Local manufacture of the product would provide employment in the UK and reduce transportation costs – both economic and environmental – associated with the product.
• Using recycled materials reduces the extraction of raw materials and hence supports biodiversity.

FURTHER INFORMATION
BACKGROUND

If you decide to work on this design brief, don't forget to consider the issues of sustainability in the different phases of your designing and making.
Click here to access Sustain-a-balls