Back to how we perceive the physical objects that we choose to interact with and buy. Marco called me today about some thoughts, and this post reflects his thoughts, with a sprinkling of mine. Actually, Marco and I had a wonderful conversation a couple of weeks ago that led to the Objects and materials series of posts. This post is (kind of) about costs and benefits/value, but as you can probably tell, I am in no way a proponent of cost-benefit analysis, particularly when carried out using neoclassical and utilitarian approaches. I tend to align with the thoughts of someone like Doug Kysar...but then again, make a convincing argument and I'll side with you =)
Life in today's world is full of trade-offs and making choices with a dearth of information. We never know fully the impacts of our choices given a complicated world. Under these circumstances, it is somewhat natural to think about the benefits or value of doing something compared to the costs. (When I say "costs" I am talking about the price you'll face at a store.) This is probably the simplest way to boil down tons of considerations, making choices potentially more tractable. (I do not necessarily advocate this) Furthermore, many people especially in the West tend to think about the short to near term, and so the benefits of making a particular choice need to be realised sooner rather than later.
Let's focus on the glass versus plastic debate. Imagine you are going to throw a party. Of course, a plastic cup costs you much less than one made of glass, especially when you go to a party store and buy a hundred of them. The value that those plastic cups provides you and the people coming to the party is immediate, as would the value of using glass cups - everyone will drink and enjoy themselves (but hopefully have a DD to take them home). The cost of a hundred glass cups, of course, would be much higher than the cost of a hundred plastic cups. Glass cups, however, will more likely be reused, because we don't think of glass cups as "disposable." (Glass bottles on the other hand would be considered "disposable" by most.) But there is constant uncertainty about the future? What are you going to do with all of these glass cups? Your lease is ending in three months and then you're going to have to move all of these cups, or donate them! What a hassle...A glass cup over its lifetime will probably provide much more value than a plastic cup, making its cost-to-value ratio smaller than that for a plastic cup. However, the issue is the lifetime. As soon as a benefit or value is realised, many times we don't think it worth keeping something to see added benefits, and who knows what those benefits may look like. Throwing plastic cups away is generally much easier than continually washing glass cups. This is also the point where the social learning about materials seems to kick in, and lend its hand in this cost-to-value valuation. Since the monetary cost is less (and we know that by looking at the price tag), and the benefits and values have been realised immediately and future benefits are uncertain and since the material is "disposable," people will likely choose plastic SOLO cups over nice glass cups. Hmmm...does this make sense?
Showing posts with label glass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label glass. Show all posts
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Objects and materials: On creativity
My posts for the last few days have tried to explore some of the issues surrounding our interactions with objects that populate the world, and the materials they are made out of. Again, I am no expert on these issues, and it would be wonderful if I can get a designer to write about the psychology of objects and materials. But until then, I'll continue to muse and surmise.
There seems to be a massive social learning and association component to materials. It seems like when you are growing up, someone (say, a parent) may tell you, "That is a disposable plate." On asking why so, that person may say, "Because it is plastic." (or whatever...Styrofoam). Maybe the connections between materials and their fate are thus made, never mind the actual potential use of the object after its initial use. The next time you may come across something made of a particular material, you may not feel bad about throwing it in a trash can. And if you don't know otherwise, why would you feel bad? Everyone around you is doing so, and maybe your mum or dad, someone you trust and learn from, tells you that it is okay. What I am trying to say that is maybe the compulsion or tendency to throw something away has more to do with material than it does with the functionality of the object. Maybe...What do you think?
Maybe it is a lack of creativity, though, that plays a significant role in why we feel something can be thrown away, or gotten rid of. I can absolutely see this in the West, having grown up in India, where when I was growing up at least, you would see people make use of objects until they are able to be blown away and disintegrated by the wind (just like how men, me included, will wear underwear until each and every underwear molecule can't retain the properties of a solid...it turns into underwear vapour). Books are continuously handed down from older students to younger ones, as are school uniforms and shoes. Every morning, a "plastic bucket repair man" comes on his bike to your home to see if your plastic buckets need repairing. Once we eat a watermelon, we peel the skin of the watermelon off, thinly, and cut up the white part and curry it and eat it. Old flat breads are given to the cows that stand outside of the temple. There is a creativity of use. I guess that may be an outcome of the heretofore lack of abundance of objects, and it is actually sad to see how India has changed since I've moved to the US.
Creativity is something we lack in almost all aspects of our communities. A reductionist world necessarily devolves and doesn't consider things outside of the well-defined topical areas. A reductionist world can make us think that a bottle can't be used as a cup, because it just isn't a cup. But what exactly are we trying to do? If you're trying to drink something, a bottle can serve as a cup, and a cup serves as a bottle.
There seems to be a massive social learning and association component to materials. It seems like when you are growing up, someone (say, a parent) may tell you, "That is a disposable plate." On asking why so, that person may say, "Because it is plastic." (or whatever...Styrofoam). Maybe the connections between materials and their fate are thus made, never mind the actual potential use of the object after its initial use. The next time you may come across something made of a particular material, you may not feel bad about throwing it in a trash can. And if you don't know otherwise, why would you feel bad? Everyone around you is doing so, and maybe your mum or dad, someone you trust and learn from, tells you that it is okay. What I am trying to say that is maybe the compulsion or tendency to throw something away has more to do with material than it does with the functionality of the object. Maybe...What do you think?
Maybe it is a lack of creativity, though, that plays a significant role in why we feel something can be thrown away, or gotten rid of. I can absolutely see this in the West, having grown up in India, where when I was growing up at least, you would see people make use of objects until they are able to be blown away and disintegrated by the wind (just like how men, me included, will wear underwear until each and every underwear molecule can't retain the properties of a solid...it turns into underwear vapour). Books are continuously handed down from older students to younger ones, as are school uniforms and shoes. Every morning, a "plastic bucket repair man" comes on his bike to your home to see if your plastic buckets need repairing. Once we eat a watermelon, we peel the skin of the watermelon off, thinly, and cut up the white part and curry it and eat it. Old flat breads are given to the cows that stand outside of the temple. There is a creativity of use. I guess that may be an outcome of the heretofore lack of abundance of objects, and it is actually sad to see how India has changed since I've moved to the US.
Creativity is something we lack in almost all aspects of our communities. A reductionist world necessarily devolves and doesn't consider things outside of the well-defined topical areas. A reductionist world can make us think that a bottle can't be used as a cup, because it just isn't a cup. But what exactly are we trying to do? If you're trying to drink something, a bottle can serve as a cup, and a cup serves as a bottle.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Objects and materials: Shape and design
Glass bottles have been something that have constantly made me think, of course, not because I drink our of them (although I do at times enjoy those very liquids...draught), but because others do, a lot. Bottles have a lot of value in many ways. They hold liquids very well, and the fact that they have a small place from which to drink from means that they reduce potential opportunities for spilling. They are thick and feel heavy, and therefore, make you feel like you are actually holding something. In fact, they feel very much like pint glasses. But I think it is very interesting how two almost identical objects in function can result in two very different responses after use. (I guess I am talking primarily about Western countries in this post.) After using a pint glass, the natural thing one may do is put the glass in the sink, or in the dishwasher. After using a glass bottle, on the other hand, the tendency for one is to put it in the trash can or recycling bin. We think it okay to reuse one of the objects, but find it odd to reuse the other, in general. The only difference between the objects is that one of them has a curved, narrowing top, while the other opens or is the same area as the base. But if you can pour a liquid into a pint glass, you can pour into a bottle, just gingerly.
On the left is a picture of a big bottle. We can absolutely imagine popping the top and drinking the beer in the bottle, but very few would wash the bottle out and use it as a glass. But what if the top of the bottle didn't exist, as in the picture on the right? In that case, once we would have had a beer from the "bottle," we would probably think that we could reuse it, and then keep it as a glass, just like many people do with Ball jars. But again, we can easily use the bottle to fill water from a tap, and just use it as a glass. (You may know that in many countries, the tops of bottles are cut off; the bottoms then serve as glasses.)
On the left is a picture of a big bottle. We can absolutely imagine popping the top and drinking the beer in the bottle, but very few would wash the bottle out and use it as a glass. But what if the top of the bottle didn't exist, as in the picture on the right? In that case, once we would have had a beer from the "bottle," we would probably think that we could reuse it, and then keep it as a glass, just like many people do with Ball jars. But again, we can easily use the bottle to fill water from a tap, and just use it as a glass. (You may know that in many countries, the tops of bottles are cut off; the bottoms then serve as glasses.)
Therefore, it seems that the difference is the social learning that one shape is acceptable to use only in certain ways, when in fact, there is very little difference between many of the objects we think are different. This raises several interesting questions about design and learning and behaviour. There are probably very small things we can do physically to common objects such that we might think they are multi-purpose. These changes can have huge consequences - reduced quantities of things going to landfills, reduced need for recycling, increased reusing, increased sentimentality, increased pass-me-downs, decreased natural resource extraction, etc. etc. etc.
The other night, Marco raised the very interesting case of the bee in the urinals (here, here). Here's a picture of the bee.
What this simple little change has done (you can read why by clicking the above links), particularly in high-volume places such as airports and malls, has been to reduce the amount of cleaning required, the chemicals required for cleaning, the water used for cleaning, and on and on. Maybe it is worthwhile to think about how we can make just small changes to what surrounds us to change our perceptions of use. It would be interesting to see how the learning is passed between people with these changes.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Objects and materials: On availability
Marco came over to my home on Friday night after we went to a wonderful birthday party for Mariko. Marco is one of the smartest, most intelligent and thoughtful people I know; he is my friend. We were talking about my experience at Professor Michael Griffin's talk, and we were trying to think about why it is we are fine with throwing things away, and what compels us to do so. We came up with a list of issues, and I will write about them one at a time. Today, I want to write about availability, and I will focus on plastic, and compare and contrast it with rarer materials, like glass and diamond, but I do believe any of these arguments can be easily extrapolated to think about other materials, and other issues. Availability I mean as the way in which objects and materials surround us, ubiquitously or rarely, especially in ways in which we physically interact with them.
I am sitting in the Fish Bowl right now, and the keyboard I am typing with is made of plastic. The frame of the screen is plastic, as is the case for the CPU of the computer. There is a plastic bottle of alcoholic hand sanitiser near the Helpdesk, and the recycling bins are made of plastic. My cell phone is made of plastic, as are the interiors of passenger aircraft. Plastic has physical properties that make it incredibly "friendly" for things like computers or bottles. Furthermore since it is made from petrochemicals, I wouldn't doubt that plastic production is subsidised, although this is purely speculation. This allows plastic to be monetarily cheap (although it is far from environmentally cheap). Consequently, plastic is highly available. We have structured our world around plastic, and in fact the world we live in would not be remotely possible without plastic. During my day, I will probably come in more physical contact with plastic than I will with something like glass, even though I absolutely love glass. It seems though that the raw materials to make glass are as abundant as petrochemicals (have so far been). So, if we really wanted to make glass more available, it probably wouldn't be that difficult. Glass has its own advantages compared to plastic, and of course, is aesthetically much more pleasing. But since it is rare to go to a fraternity party and have them serve you beer in a pint glass, the decreased availability makes us feel as if it is more valuable, in whatever way you may define value.
At the same time, maybe plastic's incredible flexibility of use and consequent ubiquity has allowed us to view it as a limitless resource, just like forests and trees may have seemed before man started plowing through them. Ubiquity and high availability seem to drive down the value of this material, rather than allowing us to appreciate it for its properties. (I know plastic has its bad sides, too. Of course, I would never warm something up in the microwave in a plastic container.) I think this is an interesting contradiction of sorts - plastic is so amazing that so many things can be made of it, and for some reason, this inherent value of it allows us to devalue it.
I am sitting in the Fish Bowl right now, and the keyboard I am typing with is made of plastic. The frame of the screen is plastic, as is the case for the CPU of the computer. There is a plastic bottle of alcoholic hand sanitiser near the Helpdesk, and the recycling bins are made of plastic. My cell phone is made of plastic, as are the interiors of passenger aircraft. Plastic has physical properties that make it incredibly "friendly" for things like computers or bottles. Furthermore since it is made from petrochemicals, I wouldn't doubt that plastic production is subsidised, although this is purely speculation. This allows plastic to be monetarily cheap (although it is far from environmentally cheap). Consequently, plastic is highly available. We have structured our world around plastic, and in fact the world we live in would not be remotely possible without plastic. During my day, I will probably come in more physical contact with plastic than I will with something like glass, even though I absolutely love glass. It seems though that the raw materials to make glass are as abundant as petrochemicals (have so far been). So, if we really wanted to make glass more available, it probably wouldn't be that difficult. Glass has its own advantages compared to plastic, and of course, is aesthetically much more pleasing. But since it is rare to go to a fraternity party and have them serve you beer in a pint glass, the decreased availability makes us feel as if it is more valuable, in whatever way you may define value.
At the same time, maybe plastic's incredible flexibility of use and consequent ubiquity has allowed us to view it as a limitless resource, just like forests and trees may have seemed before man started plowing through them. Ubiquity and high availability seem to drive down the value of this material, rather than allowing us to appreciate it for its properties. (I know plastic has its bad sides, too. Of course, I would never warm something up in the microwave in a plastic container.) I think this is an interesting contradiction of sorts - plastic is so amazing that so many things can be made of it, and for some reason, this inherent value of it allows us to devalue it.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Objects and materials: What compels us to throw away?
The other day, Steve and I went to see Professor Michael Griffin, the NASA Administrator under President Bush from 2005 to 2009, give a talk about complex systems on North Campus. Although he is has made some quite naive statements about climate change as you probably know, the talk was nonetheless fascinating and story-like. I can write about his talk, which focused on the interfaces between engineering disciplines, at a later time. But I want to write a bit about something that stuck me particularly strongly during the whole experience.
Generally, when someone as important as him gives a talk, there are refreshments - grilled vegetables, dips, cookies, and drinks. In this case, the drinks could be had in these really nice plastic cups (I didn't use one, of course, but I did see others use them). They were thick and solid, unlike those SOLO cups you might have had your last frat beer in. The plastic was clear and the plastic was fully transparent. I wondered, "Why would someone throw this away?" It seemed to me that if you decided to keep this plastic cup, it would probably last you a while, until it cracked or got crushed. You could have not one, but several drinks from this cup. You could keep the cup at your desk, and when you wanted a drink, you could fill it up and drink from it. In all senses, the cup was such that it made me want to keep the cups, and it made me want to tell others to keep their cups. But the cups were inevitably thrown away, after single uses.
Here are two pictures of cups. Which cup do you think is the plastic cup, and which one is the glass cup? I have cropped the bottoms, because the bottoms will give the answer away.
Generally, when someone as important as him gives a talk, there are refreshments - grilled vegetables, dips, cookies, and drinks. In this case, the drinks could be had in these really nice plastic cups (I didn't use one, of course, but I did see others use them). They were thick and solid, unlike those SOLO cups you might have had your last frat beer in. The plastic was clear and the plastic was fully transparent. I wondered, "Why would someone throw this away?" It seemed to me that if you decided to keep this plastic cup, it would probably last you a while, until it cracked or got crushed. You could have not one, but several drinks from this cup. You could keep the cup at your desk, and when you wanted a drink, you could fill it up and drink from it. In all senses, the cup was such that it made me want to keep the cups, and it made me want to tell others to keep their cups. But the cups were inevitably thrown away, after single uses.
Here are two pictures of cups. Which cup do you think is the plastic cup, and which one is the glass cup? I have cropped the bottoms, because the bottoms will give the answer away.
I guess it is still easy to figure out which one is plastic and which one is glass, but if you closely look at the cups, they have similar thicknesses, they function in the same way - both have the capacity and ability to hold liquids such that they don't leak. But it seems like there is something within us, likely socially defined, that makes us think that throwing away one of them is okay - people might call that one "disposable" - while throwing the other one away just doesn't make sense. I will try to think about why over the next few days.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Harming nature and creating trash in the name of medicine and health
Health is a concept I think about frequently: What does it mean to be healthy? What does it take to be healthy? How do other people influence one's health? How do nature and the environment influence health?
It is easy to look up the standard definition of health, written by say, the World Health Organisation (WHO): "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." What is striking about this definition is its anthropocentrism. What this definition implies is that health is contained within a human or a group of humans, and one is well when all is in sync within oneself and within a social group. When you ask someone what it means to be healthy, more likely than not they will reply that health ends with her. As long as she eat wells, mind absent of stress, and are surrounded by good people she can have a beer with, she is healthy. Unfortunately, we live in a continuous world (at least macroscopically). Air and water and nature begin where the human body ends, contained in its skin. Health includes our surroundings. It is not only that our environments influence our health, but we influence its "health," too, and consequently are influenced in return by it. Yet, because of how medicine is practiced in many places around the world, our conceptions of what it means to be healthy, and what it takes to be healthy, are firmly at odds with the natural world. Consequently, we cannot define health that ends merely in a healthful mind and healthful body.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, medical waste (and trash) includes bandages, gloves, syringes, surgical instruments, culture dishes and glassware, etc. This list also includes "highly hazardous, mutagenic, teratogenic and carcinogenic chemicals, such as cytotoxic drugs used in cancer treatment and their metabolites," as well as nuclear wastes, and chemicals that aren't metabolised in our bodies.
The common perception of the problem of medical waste is not that waste itself is a problem, but how this waste can spread disease and harm other humans; indeed medical waste is thought of as a public health problem. Here's what the WHO says: "Health-care waste is a reservoir of potentially harmful micro-organisms which can infect hospital patients, health-care workers and the general public. Other potential infectious risks include the spread of, sometimes resistant, micro-organisms from health-care establishments into the environment...Wastes and by-products can also cause injuries, for example radiation burns or sharps-inflicted injuries; poisoning and pollution, whether through the release of pharmaceutical products, in particular, antibiotics and cytotoxic drugs, through the waste water or by toxic elements or compounds such as mercury or dioxins."
But the medical industry is a disposable industry. The value of the human life is worth more than the value of all it takes to produce the chemicals, plastics, metals, and elements to provide health - and we end up "disposing" these materials, either incinerating them, or landfilling them. Patient care generates, on average, 5 to 6 kg of waste per bed daily, or about 750 to 800 million pounds of waste annually in the United States. Of this, about 6% constitutes biomedical waste while the remainder consists of general waste, i.e., paper, plastics, and food (full text here).
Brian shared some thoughts with me a few days ago: Is avoiding the spread of disease fundamentally at odds with reducing waste? It just struck me when working on the ambulance: for the care of one patient, we create more waste than you do in a year. I'm not sure it has to be that way. We already autoclave and reuse a ton of equipment, but some seem impossible to circumvent. Gloves are a good example.
Can we be healthy in full harmony with nature?
It is easy to look up the standard definition of health, written by say, the World Health Organisation (WHO): "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." What is striking about this definition is its anthropocentrism. What this definition implies is that health is contained within a human or a group of humans, and one is well when all is in sync within oneself and within a social group. When you ask someone what it means to be healthy, more likely than not they will reply that health ends with her. As long as she eat wells, mind absent of stress, and are surrounded by good people she can have a beer with, she is healthy. Unfortunately, we live in a continuous world (at least macroscopically). Air and water and nature begin where the human body ends, contained in its skin. Health includes our surroundings. It is not only that our environments influence our health, but we influence its "health," too, and consequently are influenced in return by it. Yet, because of how medicine is practiced in many places around the world, our conceptions of what it means to be healthy, and what it takes to be healthy, are firmly at odds with the natural world. Consequently, we cannot define health that ends merely in a healthful mind and healthful body.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, medical waste (and trash) includes bandages, gloves, syringes, surgical instruments, culture dishes and glassware, etc. This list also includes "highly hazardous, mutagenic, teratogenic and carcinogenic chemicals, such as cytotoxic drugs used in cancer treatment and their metabolites," as well as nuclear wastes, and chemicals that aren't metabolised in our bodies.
The common perception of the problem of medical waste is not that waste itself is a problem, but how this waste can spread disease and harm other humans; indeed medical waste is thought of as a public health problem. Here's what the WHO says: "Health-care waste is a reservoir of potentially harmful micro-organisms which can infect hospital patients, health-care workers and the general public. Other potential infectious risks include the spread of, sometimes resistant, micro-organisms from health-care establishments into the environment...Wastes and by-products can also cause injuries, for example radiation burns or sharps-inflicted injuries; poisoning and pollution, whether through the release of pharmaceutical products, in particular, antibiotics and cytotoxic drugs, through the waste water or by toxic elements or compounds such as mercury or dioxins."
But the medical industry is a disposable industry. The value of the human life is worth more than the value of all it takes to produce the chemicals, plastics, metals, and elements to provide health - and we end up "disposing" these materials, either incinerating them, or landfilling them. Patient care generates, on average, 5 to 6 kg of waste per bed daily, or about 750 to 800 million pounds of waste annually in the United States. Of this, about 6% constitutes biomedical waste while the remainder consists of general waste, i.e., paper, plastics, and food (full text here).
Brian shared some thoughts with me a few days ago: Is avoiding the spread of disease fundamentally at odds with reducing waste? It just struck me when working on the ambulance: for the care of one patient, we create more waste than you do in a year. I'm not sure it has to be that way. We already autoclave and reuse a ton of equipment, but some seem impossible to circumvent. Gloves are a good example.
Can we be healthy in full harmony with nature?
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