3. Lifecycle of a product
Cradle to grave
Design to dispose or reuse
4. How does this happen?
Poor Design (understatement of a generation)
1st Chapter and Last Chapter - Today learn new chapter 1
and a different ending
5. Introduction
• Where you work currently
• Couple other places you have
worked that participants might
be linked to
• What you hope to get out of
today:
ex. lessons for
classroom, background on
product lifecycle, or
_____________________
6. Agenda
• Introductions
• Sample introduction to product lifecycle:
Sweet Honey in the Rock
• Paradigm Shift in Thinking: Story of Stuff
• Adding more wood to the fire
• Lifecycle of common products
• Other Resources and ideas from the group
8. Intentional Design:
Toxic agents in the environment
• Every human carries traces of industrial
chemicals.
• 80% of U.S. streams contain at least trace
amounts of 82 wastewater contaminants.
How toxics move through the environment
9. Types of toxicants based on health effects:
these are all human designed products
• Carcinogens: cause cancer
• Mutagens: cause DNA
mutations
• Teratogens: cause birth
defects
• Neurotoxins: assault the
nervous system
• Endocrine disruptors:
interfere with the endocrine
(hormone) system
heart disease, diabetes and liver-enzyme
abnormalities
11. Going beyond Cost/Benefit Analysis…
Model Natural Systems:
been here billions of years
try to create self sustaining cycles
Cradle to Cradle U.S. Current Thinking ex.
Less toxic products:
Flame retardant kids pajamas
1. designed to be taken Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs):
apart, re-handled, and
remade Benefit: kids safety
2. Smallest loop/cycle is Also used in: computers, televisions,
more sustainable plastics, and furniture
Costs:
1. Persist and accumulate in living tissue
2. Affect thyroid/hormones
3. may cause cancer
4. affect brain and nervous system
development
5. Costs not mentioned: ______________
Note: The European Union banned them in
2003.
12. Right to Know
Ewg: Environmental Working Group
Cell phone radiation
Cosmetic data base
Health Tips
Household cleaners
Safe Seafood
Water database and
Bottled water database
16. The greatest way we make an impact is
with what we buy and how we use it.
1. What is effected by what we
buy?
(THAT WE HAVE LEARNED SO FAR)
2. What are all “costs” / “externalities” or
additional areas that are effected by the
products we buy?
17.
18. Listen to the following song and write
down
Location step in PLC Costs
________________________________________________________
El salvador cotton – materials extraction pesiticides, $2/day, civil war
Panama canal transport cotton GHG, invasive species
South carolina polyester and cotton combined
Venezuela oil for polyester air+ water pollution
workers $6/day
Trinidad and tobago oil upgraded
Haiti make the shirt label practices, $3/day
Sears in US
What steps are not included in the song?
Make this into a cycle.
19. Cotton and polyester shirt
• Sustainable Solutions:
– Buy organic shirts Shirt donated,
Shirt Designed
Or thrown out
– Pay attention to where your
shirt is from and only buy
from countries that pay
workers fairly and don’t use
harmful pesticides
• Negative Environmental Sold at Sears
Materials:
Polyester from Venezuelan oil
Issues: In the US
Cotton El Salvador Cotton
– Workers get paid $3/day and absorb
pesticides
– Polyester comes from oil. Oil
extraction can cause air and
Manufacture:
water pollution. Thread spun in South Carolina
Shirt made in Haiti
20. Evaluating Full Cost of Resources Use
• Examples
– Clear-cutting + habitat loss
– Commercial fishing + depletion of fish stocks
• Tax breaks
• Subsidies ex. Farm bill
– What is the cheapest food in the grocery store?
– We subsidize farmers to grow corn, soy and wheat
which all require huge amounts of chemicals and
contribute to the fattening up of America
21. Story of
Stuff:
change the
paradigm of
“planned
obsolenscence”
22. Electronics
• They rule so many people’s lives
• The cultural effect is just as important …
• But where do they come from…
Story of Electronics:
1st- list the steps in a product’s lifecycle in general
2nd- with something erasable, write down your hypothesis for
typical electronic lifecycle including costs
3rd- Watch 8 minute video and fill in effects
23. Electronics
• Sustainable Solutions: Disposal/
Reuse/ Material Extraction:
Recycle
• Negative Environmental Use product:
Production
Issues: “Products life”
Transportation:
24. Electronics after video
Sustainable Solutions: Disposal/
Reuse/
Material Extraction:
. You made it, you deal with it Recycle
. Old TV 5 l. lead
1000 materials
mines
. Extended user responsibility . China recycling
25 million tons/yr
. Product take back
. Longer lasting, less toxic, more
recyclable/reusable/modular
. Consumer demand for greener products
. Ask recycler where e-waste goes
. Design government policy to encourage
green innovation Use product:
Production
PVC, flame
“Products life”
retardants, chemical
Negative Environmental Issues:
• Design for the dump
• Workers exposed to chemicals (40% >
miscarriages)
• Silicon Valley polluted
• Toxics in . . . Toxics out Transportation:
• Externilizing costs of production
– Cost vs. Benefit analysis
26. Classroom ideas: positive
Research a sustainable company
1. Create a product lifecycle for one of
their products as best you can
2. Write a letter to company with
compliments and suggestions to make
their products more sustainable.
Include areas where they need to
have more transparency.
27. Make a Map of PLC of a Shoe
1. Set up the 7 5. Pass fishing line as
continents tell story
2. What materials
need to be
extracted
3. (hand out pics)
4. Location of
materials
28. Classroom ideas: positive
Sustainable Solutions Survey
1. Research a sustainable product:
Sustainable( using a product lifecycle mentality)
worker rights, fair pay, environmentally
sound, reuse, etc…
2. Create a survey of their product
teach others about the product after the survey
3. Graph and write a newspaper article about
their survey and results and the importance of
their product.
29. Analyze a Product Lifecycle
Source: Use Worldwatch Institute or
another organization
1st Give students existing product
lifecycle
2nd Have students make note-cards of
their lifecycles
3rd Create stations where kids need
to put cards in a cycle
4th Stations:
a. List Negative Environmental
Impacts
b. List Sustainable Solutions (may not
be in article)
31. Key topics in Sustainability that
connect to product lifecycle
1. Ecological Footprint
2. Lifecycle of a Product
3. Biomimicry
3 Tools you need to help understand keys to sustainability:
Natural capital, bioregional studies, developing local
economies, permaculture, ____________________
32. Ideas for the classroom:
Have students trace the
lifecycle of bottled water
. Show story of bottled water
. Campaign to have school
bottled water free
. Bottle water tower
Other MS and HS and
college ideas/lessons
34. Website: http://tinyurl.com/4ar3t7x
• WEB RESOURCES
REFERENCE:
•
• background and key vocab. related to
•
• LESSONS: product lifecycle
•
•
•
Patagonia Co. specific lifecycles
• Facing the Future: 9th-12th: 10 lessons called "Buy,
• Use,Toss" Connects with Story of Stuff Impact of materials in shoes: good as a
•
• research point
• 7-12th grade: lifecycle of shoes
•
• paper vs. plastic bag lifecycle analysis
Story of Stuff downloads:
• Story of: bottled water, cosmetics,
• simple lesson for a marketing teacher electronics, stuff,
•
• cap and trade and more
• to come
•
•
• William McDonough TED talk: this guy is
amazing
How to prevent toxins in your life
Environmental Working Group: great site for
helping to make
sustainale buying decisions
36. Timeline
• Introductions-
• Present and modify goals of session- 10 min.
• Sample introduction to product lifecycle: Sweet
Honey in the Rock- 30 min.
• Paradigm Shift in Thinking: Story of Stuff- 30 min
• Adding more wood to the fire- 20 min
• Lifecycle of common products- 15 min.
• Other Resources and ideas from the group
37. Notes and don’t forget
• Get cent pp and 8th grade pp
• Cd song
• Need speakers
• Notes on each slide
