22 Apr Happy Earth Day from Key Tech
Today, April 22, is Earth Day. It is a day to pause and think about environmental awareness. For most of us, over the course of a day we use hundreds of different products, everything from pens and pencils, to computers, to cars, and yet few people stop to think about the full lifespan of the products they use and the impact those products have on the environment. Luckily, environmental awareness and conservation are growing factors in product development, and thus the products we use are becoming progressively more “green”.
When a designer focuses on creating a product that will minimize its impact on the environment, there are a number of factors that can be considered, many of them cheap or cheaper than the alternatives. While these may not all be feasible for every product, with a dedicated effort it is always possible to produce products greener than the ones being made today. A couple areas that can be considered when thinking about green development include:
- Materials – Choosing materials that are recyclable and reusable goes a long way towards reducing a product’s impact on the environment. Perhaps a product can be molded out of recyclable plastic or metal, or used 5-10 times instead of once, both means which allow for an increased lifespan rather than being dropped into a landfill.
- Energy Consumption – The past decade has been all about devices becoming battery operated. From a design standpoint, this has forced development to become increasingly focused on efficient use of the energy available. Many of the energy consumption tricks that have been learned in the battery-operated world can be carried over to other devices, even devices that do not run on batteries. Making all devices energy efficient reduces the amount of energy that needs to be produced, makes each device cheaper to operate, and decreases the depletion of resources from our environment. To this affect, the European Union has gone as far to begin implementing energy consumption rules for even plugged-in devices, to help reduce unnecessary energy waste.
- Energy Harvesting – A burgeoning field of design is based around energy harvesting, or the ability to gather energy from localized sources such as solar energy, vibration, heat, or mechanical motion. These devices then become self-sustainable, drawing no energy from the electric grid or batteries. From a green designers view energy harvesting devices create their own energy, with little to no waste. Energy harvesting technology has an exciting future in front of it, with the potential to take many forms of “waste” energy such as heat or vibrations and turn them into a positive gain.
When environmental compliance is a design goal early in the development process, these and many other opportunities exist to create innovative products with green footprints. On this Earth Day, consider how your next product could be made more environmentally sound with some green design principles.
Photo credit: Flávio Takemoto
Outside of the office Josh is an active person, participating in local sports leagues and traveling the country playing Ultimate Frisbee. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Bucknell University.
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