This week in IXD501 Daniel gave us a rather interesting task to design a product or service for the year 2050. This task was to encourage us to think outside the box and consider what the world would look like in 2050. We could either roll with the idea that we already had for the first project (in our case, waste disposal) or go with a brand-new idea. We decided to go with the idea we had already and build upon that.
We had a few ideas on how we might bring our current idea for waste disposal into the future such as drone collection, robot bin men etc. But the more we discussed it, the more ideas flowed out. The sky was our limit, anything could be possible in 28 years and so we considered everything.
We began discussing all potential solutions to waste disposal in the future. How could it be transferred to the waste management depot? or would we have to transfer it at all? who knows really? We began by looking at some statistics that are in place for the shorter term to gather an understanding of what the future would maybe look like. We found some interesting statements such as this one on landfill and how there are plans to reduce the amount of landfill over time:
“The European Commission recently backtracked on an ambitious set of legislative promises on waste and recycling, including the phasing out of using landfill for recyclable rubbish and a commitment to cut food waste by 30% by 2025.”
And this following statement pointed to more landfill being reprocessed and repurposed.
“By 2025, waste disposers “won’t be burying or burning people’s rubbish as they do today”, states Gover. These companies will merge into what he terms the “reprocessing industry”, where their central role is not to dump stuff but to return “valuable resources to manufacturers”.”
And even this statement looks at charging customers for food waste in order to clamp down on the overwhelming amount.
“Step forward smart cards. The institution’s head of environment and energy, Tim Fox, argues that smart measuring technology which charges consumers for the food waste they produce could change public attitudes sharpish.”
By 2050:
“The World Bank estimates global waste will grow by 70 percent by 2050 as urbanisation and populations rise11, requiring better collecting, recycling of trash, as well as expertise clean-up efforts from public and private sectors.”
We also found that by 2050:
“The world is on course to generate 3.4 billion tons of waste annually. Greenhouse gas emissions associated with poor waste management, a key contributor to climate change, are likely to increase to 2.6 billion of CO2 equivalent by 2050.”
It’s easy to recognise the huge impact that waste will soon have on our planet and that it must be controlled. We could very soon see a massive change in the way we deal with waste in order to save our planet. But it’s too easy to just say “recycle your waste” because the system currently put in place is not sustainable and completely relies on the responsibility of people. Governments need to build better infrastructure for this issue and make it easier for people to manage and dispose of their waste.
From this research, we learn that governments are trying to look for solutions and head toward a net 0 emissions society. We can see that they want to reuse and reduce as much waste as possible that currently goes into landfill. So let’s look at ideas that build upon these predictions.
We started thinking of concepts that we think could be possible in 28 years time or sooner. Even though we know they wouldn’t be possible today, people in the 80s didn’t think we would be walking around with rectangular devices in their pockets 20 years from then.
Our ideas are as follows: