The problem of waste
We can tell a lot about what we value as a global culture by looking at what we make and what we throw away. As regular consumers and users of products and services, it is easy to forget about all of the other parts of the process that brought the product that we're using to us; so, a smartphone, a slice of pizza, a piece of furniture, or even a website or streaming service can easily become reduced to only what we see. As designers, we know that all of those things aren’t just singular objects devoid of any other processes or externalities—almost all consumer goods require packaging, shipping, and marketing just to end up in your cart or on your porch. They also usually have less savory byproducts, such as extraction, exploitation, and waste disposal, to go from an idea to a fully-realized product.
In any economic system, any particular commodity—that is, any item, good, or service that can be bought or sold—has a price, and that price is usually determined by the market. But how much do those items truly cost? How do we determine that cost—be it financial or material? And perhaps most importantly, is there a limit past which the ends to create a new commodity do not justify the means?
This four-part series sets out to touch on the topic of waste; not just waste as in what physical objects we throw away or where that waste goes, but also through a more abstract lens by examining the sociopolitical and ecological objects and people that we write off as merely the costs of upholding the current economic paradigm. I’ll be drawing from the writings of a number of wonderful authors whose books have spurred me to action and that you should definitely consider checking out. We’ll hear from Naomi Klein, Leah Thomas, Victor Papanek, and many more as we look at this topic and tie it to our own professions.
This may seem like a strange topic to cover, but there are a lot of reasons why here, at the intersection of climate change and design, it is important. To start, designers have a direct hand in the crafting, sourcing, selling, user interface, and overall success of products that have unequal global consequences. Nothing at all is free from the cycle of consequence. Even something as straightforward as an electronic device is more than just an object. The production of that object almost certainly involves the exploitation of people and the environment on the other side of the world in such a way that we, the gadget’s users, gain all of the benefits of the device, and those people and places elsewhere are left with the fallout of its manufacture or waste disposal. Our jobs shouldn’t be limited to just innovating and improving products and driving the cycle of consumption. Designers need to do more than simply participate in the cycle of waste as a natural consequence of designing new objects.
The problem with a waste mentality at all is that it cannot be inclusive of everybody or all environments. Our economic and social systems are built upon both the supposed “inevitability” of people or objects falling out of the system and those people and objects not being restored to a condition in which continued participation is possible any longer. This is not a characteristic that is necessarily endemic to societies or economies, nor does it reflect the natural world. It is a waste mentality that allows us to create geographic “sacrifice zones” because our industrial processes require enormous amounts of energy and raw materials as they leave behind unwanted byproducts. It is a waste mentality that relegates entire groups of people to the edges of our societies, left to fend for themselves as designers are asked to cater to preferred or more profitable demographics.
We cannot defeat the climate crisis if a widespread waste mentality continues to be a normal part of our design process. This series is about shining a light on all of the things that we throw away, literally or figuratively, and opening the door to discussion about how we can change that. Nature wastes nothing; reciprocity and renewal is the natural mode of resource allocation in the wild and the commodities that we help design can be made with renewal and re-use as primary targets. We’ll focus on the human and ecological costs of what design without reservations produces by examining at length three main arenas: “sacrifice zones”, marginalized communities, and the items that we design to throw away. Each entry will be released two weeks after the last one to give readers time to comment, think, or even break each entry up into a few pieces for easier reading (they are a little lengthy, but worth it!).
I cannot go any further without first acknowledging the elephant in the room—the fact that I am not, broadly speaking, a part of a marginalized community. I am privileged to be able to have time and space to examine this problem and how it relates to us as designers, but fundamentally, I am not marginalized. I don’t live in a “sacrifice zone.” I am queer but I can live an otherwise “un-marginalized” life as I examine exactly how exactly I will navigate life as a queer person. But, perhaps the least that any privileged person can do is reflect on the systems that their “elevated” status emerges from, and I hope that in writing this examination I am doing a bit more than merely reflecting.
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: Design after Capitalism by Matthew Wisinsky, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor by Rob Nixon, The Great Displacement by Jake Bittle
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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.