Video Reflection (A)

 Giving packaging a new life

It is reminded that as a future industrial designer, it’s our responsibility to choose the compatible material for each individual product that is being designed. We are aim to minimize the net impact; the use of material and other resources, and also minimize the environment and social impact of materials and components. It’s good to take more concern about the renewable or recyclable material.

As shown in the videos, there’s huge energy or labor work involved in recovery stream for plastic, glass, Tetra pack, paper, aluminum, tinplate or other waste. They all required several stages to produce the raw material from the sorted waste. Or meet the requirement of homogeneous product with defined properties. The engineer has put a lot of effort in removing impurities such as color, label, components, and other material to make the final product meet the requirements. The recycling processes might include detergent, soda lime added into the material, examined by the electronic device to get rid of the unwanted fragments, get washed and then recycled into high grade granulate.

Those videos are so helpful that explain the complex process of the recycle system, especially the one for plastic. I was amazed by the precision of the process. There are several methods such as optical sorting system which includes using near infrared separator, metal segment get removed by magnets, lids are removed by sink float process, heating up the material after wet with soda lime and utilize the color scanning camera to blow away the impurities. And those mixed plastics are generated into the raw material of window or feed stock. They all raise my awareness of selecting more recyclable material for future project. It is necessary to balance the visual impact and the environment impact. Packaging is mean to be simple, less unnecessary details, reduced component of other material, less color for label printed, long-term recycle life for some product and less energy required. I didn't know the recycle process involves such advanced technique until I watch them. And I always think the plastic recycle are all about melting down and large amount of chemical are involved in process rather than sorted physically. All the media reports drive me to think plastic as the hardest material to recycle. But it’s certainly not. They are ready to become a secondary raw material as long as you separate them to a fine level.

Like always, be green, be environmentally friendly.

This reflection is based on the video from:

Giving Packaging a New Life

      How It’s made

Industrial design is about creating profitable products for manufacture. Crafting is mostly unpractical for large quantity need. As a future industrial designer, we need to take the method of manufacturing as part of our design. We are not creating a unique piece of art, which could take hours of manpower into it. It is the product that is capable for copying hundreds of thousands time. This is also including packaging.

From the videos, manufacture packaging such as tubes, aluminum cans, and glass bottles seems quite mature in the industry. Every single detail on the final product can be well calculated, data designed, position adjusted by the machine. It reminds me that the more detailed it is, the much effort of engineering work would involve, the more hours you’re going to spend the packaging, the more money you’re going to pay for the labor. It’s clear that the consumers are not willing to pay for the packages. It seems ridiculous that some packaging worth more value than the product it produced. Chinese people are custom to see this happen on moon cake, tea or any other gifting products. This is definitely not what we are looking for. Packaging for manufacture stream needs to be low price, less energy includes, less internal transportation, light weighted, volume controlled, safety & hygiene to use, and economical & environmental friendly.

I found it’s useful when they keep reminding me that safety & hygiene to use is always a serious point to design in packaging. For food or medicine industry, you have to make sure that the products won’t react with the packages. Or you have get prepared in case something happen. Since no one would like to drink the metal flavored coke, they coat the aluminum can with a water based barrier to prevent the reaction happen. The detecting system or machine has been applied to check whether there’s any risk in the products before shipping. The videos also answer my question about the cleaning system. The factory does clean the can with non Ph water at 140 Celsius degree. It’s fascinated me that glass requires less energy to produce than the plastic or metal. It’s interesting to know that both resin and glass include silicon. And they use soda ash, limestone, silicon sand and natural grounded material to build glass.

It’s better for us to understand the characteristics of the material before we do packaging. We need to follow the rule of science. Marketing research will be strongly recommended for a consumer product. Several testing on different group of people will gain experienced feedback from user side.

This reflection is based on the video from:

How It's Made