JAYMI: Lifecycle

We live in a throw away society. And often we don’t even think twice when we throw out a piece of rubbish. Especially with reference to packaging which is driven by convenience. Disposable products may save our time but are ultimately having a detrimental impact on the environment.

Does that make sense that something that is only used once lasts for so long, have we created such millions of tones of refuse just for convenience? So designers and people alike have to consider the function and lifecycle of a product to see whether it is worth the eco impact.

Both Cradle-to-Grave and cradle-to-cradle refer to the lifecycle of a product. Cradle-to-grave considers the impacts at each stage of a product's life-cycle, from the time natural resources are extracted from the ground and processed through each subsequent stage of manufacturing, transportation, product use, and ultimately, disposal.

Cradle-to-cradle is completely cyclic. It is a concept whereby humans try to mimic the process of nature where everything is reused there is no wastage it is a continuous cycle. Cradle to cradle will have a big impact on future materials that are being developed where materials will be used over and over in a continuous cycle, with materials such as bio-plastics a book then can be melted down formed into other items such as a cereal box, etc it is limitless.

Cradle-to-cradle: the next packaging paradigm? - http://www.packworld.com/view-16013