Destinies for design materials......

This means all of the paper, plastics, glue, ink, plastic, foil, coatings, and other finishes that make up our design.....they all have to go somewhere one way or another after they have served their purpose...

There are six possible destinations for these materials:

Perpetual Litter
Landfills
Incarceration
Compost
Recycling
Reuse


Perpetual litter:

This is the worst of all destinations. This is particularly a problem of plastics waste. In places without sophisticated waste disposal infrastructure, plastic trash becomes a permanent pox on the natural landscape. Ocean current have assembled plastic trash into several massive 'garbage patches' of floating debris covering an area twice the size of Texas out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.


Landfill:

This is an ecological dead end, although somewhat managed dead end. Materials that end up there essentially have no value for society or the ecosystem.
Worse are the materials that require a hazardous waste landfill. These materials demand special treatment, often at great expense.

Incineration:

This is the end of the line for material structure, but some of the energy embodied in the material can be captured and put to good use.

Aside from energy there are two main outputs from incineration, gaseous emissions and solid ash and each can be problematic.

Composting:

This represents a complete loss of physical structure, but the nutrients embodied in the materials continue to circulate within our ecosystem.

Note: A biodegradable polymer bag printed with non-compostable inks or a piece of compostable paper with a plastic laminate is essentially contaminated.

Recycling:

this maintains far more of the material's value. Some metals and polymers can be recycled indefinitely with little or no loss of structure. Other materials, such as paper and most plastics lose some structural quality or ourity when they are recycled. This is sometimes called downcycling.

Recycling usually entails melting, pulping, shredding or otherwise reconstructing a material, but thats not always necessary. Many materials maintain enough structural integriti to be reprocessed.

Reuse:

The highest order of 'design for destiny' because it represents the greatest persistence of material value. If a design is used twice instead of just once, its ecological footprint for the function performed could easily drop by half.