Nature has a lot to offer

I had a difficult time this week coming up with an idea to discuss involving design activism, but when I came to the topic about the ‘under-consumer’ in Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onward the idea of educating that part of the population became something I knew I needed to talk about. My family has always been avid hunters of the land. Every deer season our freezer is stocked with meat, every summer stocked with fish. When March hits and the rainfall has been good we always hunt for mushrooms (if you’ve never had a wild mushroom you’re missing out). I’m Native American on both my mom and my dad’s side so living off of the land has always been in our bloodline. It makes me so sad to see that there are people literally starving in our own country when two doors down you know a mother is telling her child he doesn’t have to finish his plate. In

My idea for this week about educating consumers, over or under, about using what is free. FREE. There are many people who are educated in wildlife and plant-life who could easily spend a few hours a week getting a community together and educating them what is good about nature. Telling them what plants are safe to eat, how to grow their own crops, how to trap animals, and then how to dress that animal. There could be a session where they are taught how to build shelter in desperate times of need.  Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onward states that sustainability is “learning to live well but consuming less.” Here we will see that each communities will benefit from consuming less by living off what is in nature an also living well because everything is natural; no harmful chemicals, no unethical sweatshops.

Of course I’m not saying we don’t need to consume, but the ‘under-consumers’ will consume the same just ACTUAL necessities, instead of using their welfare money to buy coke and junk food. By educating the ‘under-consumer’ to consume pots, knifes, rope, etc. they will eventually be living better than the ‘over-consumers’.  Another benefit of living off the land is the fact that the waste and carcasses will go directly back into nature continuing the biological nutrients cycle.

The most important thing I have learned this entire semester of blogging is the amount of consumption we use on a daily basis. I catch myself actually going through what I think my be the products lifecycle and basing my consuming off of that, I look for labels of ethical manufacturing on products, or I catch myself watching consumers in a public setting and thinking about how they have no idea how much they are harming our environment and what a few simple changes could do to eliminate their habits of unsustainability. While I learned a lot from the extensive reading in this course I also learned a lot about where I can stay connected to our environment and how its evolving into a more sustainable place. I wish I would have retained more information through the readings as I admit it was had to understand what I was reading at times. I wish the reading were aimed toward an audience that had limited knowledge about sustainability. Overall I feel like I took a lot from this course. 

Where is the Future taking us?

Earlier in the week I read an article from Bloomberg Businessweek title “Is Nike's Flyknit the Swoosh of the Future?,”  and it focused on a new shoe Nike is producing that take less energy and time to make. The new shoe is made like a sock on one machine and only sews two pieces together. Then the top is connected to the bottom. This week I decided to focus on Technical Metabolism, and the design concept I am proposing is using knitted clothing, pants, shirts, socks, to be unwoven, bleached and re-dyed and processed again to be used for the Nike shoe. 

Becky Early rom Textile Future makes an obvious point about the clothing we produce for season to season as trends are all too soon tossed aside. By sending knitted clothing that someone might consider waste to a factory where they would start the “backward cycle” if you will to take the yarn to its original state then redo the process to fit Nike’s liking for their new Flyknit shoes. As we all may know from tragic experience, knits are easy to unravel which makes them a prim candidate for this concept. In the Waste Equals Food paper it is clear that products must be designed to be taken apart easily with a life of durability for only a certain amount of time.  

My idea was sparked when I read the C2CAD paper about dying knitwear. The article caught my attention when it talked about the tests being done on the color and knits. A running shoe that Nike is producing needs flexibility, strength, and colorfastness resistance; the shoe won’t necessarily be using these certain dyes but it is always an option which would make it both biological metabolism and technical metabolism. Here is an image of the new Nike Flyknit shoe: 

Cradle-to-Cradle

This week’s assignment was to implement an idea that takes one product and extends the life to another product of equal or more value. I decided to think of a product in the technical nutrients category and came up with upcycling cardboard boxes (only non-waxed cardboard would work) . As we all know in the apparel industry we use an abundant amount of cardboard boxes from shipping items we sell or to receive items from other companies. At my internship I would see over 100 boxes a day easily and all we did with them was bale them and set them out by the curb. 

Then someone from a recycling company would drive by and pick them up. We never knew what happened to them. My idea for this cradle-to-cradle assignment would be to come up with some type of company that bought plain cardboard boxes and made them into household decorating objects such as picture frames, shelving, or even rugs. Currently picture frames and inexpensive shelving are made up of plastic and are mostly just imitating wood. So why not take cardboard boxes, something this is just thrown away or broken down and make it into items we are already going to buy? From experience it seems like there are more boxes being made then recycled. I got this idea from our reading Waste Equals Food when Henry Ford implemented taking the shipping crates and turning them into the floorboards of his cars.  There a number of websites out there that tell or show people how to take cardboard and make into to something.

But no manufacturing companies at the moment. Another great thing about cardboard is that it is decomposable over time and, according to the video Rhoener Textiles making sure products from the beginning can be out back into the Earth as food is what manufacturing companies need to start doing. Once people no longer need their items then they can easily disassemble them (without sending it back to the company) and put in down (shredded or not) in their garden as a way to separate weeds fom the new soil you put down and to act as mulch (this I learned from my Nana who learned it from her dad). 

images from: 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/20110129/domingosoacute-tora-upcycled-cardboard-furniture-sculptures-and-objects.htm

http://www.bmwagner.com/2012/02/539/

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/cardboardmulch#b

Cradle-to-Cradle

This week’s assignment was to implement an idea that takes one product and extends the life to another product of equal or more value. I decided to think of a product in the technical nutrients category and came up with upcycling cardboard boxes (only non-waxed cardboard would work) . As we all know in the apparel industry we use an abundant amount of cardboard boxes from shipping items we sell or to receive items from other companies. At my internship I would see over 100 boxes a day easily and all we did with them was bale them and set them out by the curb. 

Then someone from a recycling company would drive by and pick them up. We never knew what happened to them. My idea for this cradle-to-cradle assignment would be to come up with some type of company that bought plain cardboard boxes and made them into household decorating objects such as picture frames, shelving, or even rugs. Currently picture frames and inexpensive shelving are made up of plastic and are mostly just imitating wood. So why not take cardboard boxes, something this is just thrown away or broken down and make it into items we are already going to buy? From experience it seems like there are more boxes being made then recycled. I got this idea from our reading Waste Equals Food when Henry Ford implemented taking the shipping crates and turning them into the floorboards of his cars.  There a number of websites out there that tell or show people how to take cardboard and make into to something.

But no manufacturing companies at the moment. Another great thing about cardboard is that it is decomposable over time and, according to the video Rhoener Textiles making sure products from the beginning can be out back into the Earth as food is what manufacturing companies need to start doing. Once people no longer need their items then they can easily disassemble them (without sending it back to the company) and put in down (shredded or not) in their garden as a way to separate weeds fom the new soil you put down and to act as mulch (this I learned from my Nana who learned it from her dad). 

images from: 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/20110129/domingosoacute-tora-upcycled-cardboard-furniture-sculptures-and-objects.htm

http://www.bmwagner.com/2012/02/539/

Oklahoma gives more than you think

As we are introducing new ideas and concepts to the world mimicking life (biomimicry) is becoming a trend of sorts. For example, when you go to the new addition of the student union at Oklahoma State University you will see in the study rooms the lighting fixtures mimic maybe a flower or a bee’s hive and there are windows all around.  I’ve learned in previous courses that the look of nature helps calm a persons nerves which is good before an exam or maybe studying for one like a group of students would be doing in these rooms. The point is that nature is “trending.” And maybe this is the wrong word because in my opinion the look and feel of nature will be around for a long time. Not just for the fact that nature calms us, but because we have a connection with nature, as we should. We shouldn’t want to control nature or try to copy it we should include nature into our lives. God put nature: land, plants and animals, here for us to use. Why shouldn’t we be incorporating it into our lives?

            My idea concept was going off of what Suzanne Lee stated briefly in her speech about her new textile. She mentioned using nature as a dying agent.  Meaning use dirt, plants, fruit, vegetable, or any other items in nature to dye textiles.  I haven’t done much research on this, but we have learned throughout the semester how harmful the chemicals in dying agents can be both to the environment and to the workers around them. About a year ago I did come across a t-shirt made (and dyed) in the state of Oklahoma. It was dyed with our very own red dirt. And honestly I’m drawn to that rust color so the shirt really attracted me. Bradley Quinn in Textiles Futures talks about how Janie Benyus said nature produces a good amount of normal, everyday materials that we, as humans, could use to improve our lives. Nature gives us so much, but as we have learned humans find one resource and take it till there is no more to take. Why shouldn’t we utilize a little bit of everything? If we do this, in the right way, we are likely to see an improvement in consumption. The right way to me means giving back as much as we take. Make the dye baths to where we can pour it back into the Earth: no toxic chemicals allowed.  In order to achieve such a new concept would require, however, more respect to our land than we are currently giving. Eventually our home will not produce what it is currently if we continually act as if the Earth means nothing. It means everything. 

Part I: Let's talk about the Future

Do the stories you tell yourself contribute to optimism or pessimism?

·      Pessimism. I didn’t think there was much I could do, as one person. Before this class I didn’t think much about the environment and what I could be doing to harm it. My family does recycling: glass, paper, plastic, but I never really thought to much about what else I could be contributing to our planet. My thoughts when first coming in to this was that people seem to make a big deal out of nothing. I kept telling myself these are just a bunch of tree hungering vegans who just need something to do. Honesty, that harsh. But I now think I’m the one that needs to be doing something. People like me are the one that need to be doing the most work because we are the ones that are causing the most harm. There is good news though, according to Tom Lombardo, author of Thinking Ahead: The Value of Future consciousness, our behavior toward the future can be altered through “relearning, education, and training.”

What might you need to change to enable you to envision a sustainable future?

·      I would need to change the way I view my home: Earth. I need to really look at all the things I do, on a daily basis, and see how much pollution I’m causing, how much waste I’m creating, and how much energy I’m using. I would really need to change my attitude also, because if everyone has the view that our world really isn’t at risk of overconsumption, depleted resources, and increasing waste then there is no overcoming these issues. According to Lombardo, psychotherapy focuses on helping people become open-minded about the future and positively increases their thoughts on the future.

What are the key tenets or characteristics that define your vision?

·      Much less consumption of water

·      Reuse, Up-cycle, or Recycle of products

·      Community involvement

·      Responsible product consumption

What are the mental modes (or beliefs) which will be required to create that future?

·      We don’t use that much water è water is sacred and we have to make it last

·      Recycling and up-cycling take too much effort è Recycling is worth it. I may not have time to up-cycle but I can donate my things to someone who has the time.

·      Why should I be involved when no one else is è My time here on earth is meant for so much more, I need to give back.

·      I don’t use that much è I use what I need only when I need it.

What would one have to believe to bring about your vision?

·      That on Earth we have a purpose. We are not here to take up space. The Lord wants us to give more than we receive, or take. We have to start believing that our time here is valuable and we must not waste it.

What are some habitual beliefs (the stories we tell ourselves) which may present barriers to your vision?

·      We tell ourselves that we are just one person on a planet with millions, what good can one person do? According to Kim and Oki, authors of Visioneering: an essential framework in sustainability science, as visioneers we are responsible for leading people to a sustainable future by seeing a better future (visoneering) and also living one. We need to give up thinking that we are one person in a sea of many. We live in a society that likes to follow, meaning when we follow one thing others join and together we are a big sea. We follow trends in fashion, food, entertainment, and we are willing to follow what others follow. It’s a confusing circle of followers, but as followers we will follow pretty much anything that benefits us. We need to teach, educate, and train consumers about the effects our actions are having on our planet and hope in turn they will follow us down the long road of sustainability.

How might you communicate and engage others in your vision that will compel them to follow?

·      Just like with anything else consumers want you to be real with them. They don’t want lies, or confusing words they don’t understand, consumers just want what is real and simplistic. We need to come up with a way to relay the information we know in a simplistic form. Kim and Oki express that there are factors that contribute to the reasons people don’t live out sustainability in their lives. Most don’t have an “understanding of the behavior of complex systems, sufficient capacity to preform the actions and changes needed, and political willingness to implement changes. When I am a consumer consuming products I use to not care about the information you had to “sell” to me about the environment because I couldn’t understand it. I don’t want to mess with something I don’t understand, besides it has no interest to me if I don’t know what you’re talking about. Some people simply do not know what to do to live a sustainable life. And other think the government doesn’t care enough to enforce rules and regulations so why should they care?

Conclusion

·      By 2050 I don’t expect to see a dramatic change. This world is large and it takes many years for messages and trends to catch on, but as a group we can inform people about the actions we need to take to make sure our “home” is reaching toward sustainability. We have to start thinking about our children and grandchildren and how this planet might end up if we don’t take care of it. I know for me my attitude towards the future will become better, and that’s a start. If we can start there and work our way to living sustainability I think we will turnout just fine.