| Sam Jackson | Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 09:35 pm
If we continue to rely on nature sustaining the human race, something that, at the continuing rate of our expansion, is almost certainly impossible, are we not slowing the inevitable need to concentrate on the production of more innovative man made materials rather than rely on those produced originally by nature?
I'm fully aware that this might be conceived as a controversial subject; all the same I’m sure some of you might like to comment. |
| mYoung | Monday, March 22, 2004 - 01:04 am
I wasn't quite clear on the last part of your first sentence. By this do you mean that sustainability will slow down economic progress, and specifically innovation in new materials? Or that it means we should just stick to natural materials, and not processed ones? |
| Sam Jackson | Monday, April 12, 2004 - 01:12 pm
Sorry for the delayed reply mYoung, I’m basically questioning whether sustainability is slowing the inevitable. We will run out of natural resources. Should we not concentrate more on the production of new innovative materials rather than the protection and reuse of natural materials? So I guess as you said ‘is sustainability slowing the need for man to produce new materials before its to late’?!
I hope you have an opinion as i look forward to hearing it. Cheers Sam |
| Frank Wuggenig | Tuesday, April 20, 2004 - 01:46 pm
Innovative materials are still materials that have to be created by using something. Therefore we need to balance the protection of natural materials with the need to innovate new materials.
The designition forum website - www.designition.org.uk - was specifically created to ignite human ingenuity in designers. What we need to be careful of is that this drive to innovate does not mean innovation at all cost - including cost to the environment. |
| mYoung | Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 02:19 pm
So you are saying 'should we concentrate on developing new materials, instead of recycling and reusing the existing ones'? Like Frank said, even innovative materials have to come from somewhere. It depends where you get them from. Man-made just means processed materials, the problem comes from whether the source is renewable or finite.
I think 'sustainablity' is about finding long term solutions that will work. If that means innovative materials then that's great, it could also mean using the current materials more frugally, or changing the patterns of use. I don't think there will be one answer. A lot of sustainability talks about zero waste systems where nothing becomes waste. Using a range of materials that allowed this to happen may require some innovative materials, but it depnds more on material flows being arranged in a manner that lets this happen.
I had a look at your website Frank, very interesting. Are you close to filling in some of the gaps in the directory? And how do you pronounce 'designition'?! design-ishun or des-ignition?! |
| Frank Wuggenig | Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - 12:32 pm
mYoung - its pronounced des-ignition. The gaps in the directory have been bugging me some time now, but the funding for the website was withdrawn and that stopped most of the work. The website was not designed to be driven by a database, which it should have. Instead I had to design each page by taken details from the designition database. With all other jobs within sustainability that I am doing I just couldn't find the time.
I am hoping to invest more time into it soon though.
For anyone interested out there, the designition forum is still interested in partnerships or contributors in the research field or in IT.
You are right that the solutions to material scarcity will come not from one single source but several. I am working on biopolymers, starch based polymers for example. But these materials come from potatoes for instance and that means growing them. So Land Use, Food Scarcity and Genetic Engineering are also issues affecting innovative materials. |