Reflection on “Giving packaging a new life” and “How it’s made: packaging”

As designers we need to understand the life cycle of a variety of materials. This will effect our design process and choice of material in the future and help us approach our concepts in a socially and environmentally acceptable method. The “Giving packaging a new life” and “How it’s made: packaging” give extensive information about the recycling process of a range of materials. I found these videos very useful due to the extensive explanation and clear illustration of manufacturing and recycling process of these materials. The video “Giving packaging a new life” focuses of materials such as plastic, aluminium and glass. It shows that only a small percentage of material used in the plastic bottles used to package drinks is made of newly processed material, most of the material is made of recycles plastic. This gives opportunity of save fossil fuels for the next generations on the planet. But it is also important to alert the users of the characteristic of these bottles. This is the reason why it is advised not to use these bottles for more than one time. One of the other emphasises of these videos are aluminium and glass. It was useful to know how aluminium and glass can be recycled continuously; this can affect our attitude about using aluminium in our products. Even though aluminium and glass are infinitely recyclable though, it is important to come up with solutions to prevent these expensive products so as designers we should always think about ways to come up with innovations to help the environment. The video “How it’s made: packaging” emphasises on the production of paper and points out that around 60% of the paper we use daily today is recycled. Then it has been explained how this process takes place as the used papers are classified in different types then is pressed and recycled using heaving machinery. Also the benefits of aluminium has been pointed out in this video as it explains how aluminium is flexible to be in very different shapes as well as being very suitable material for recycling. Also the fact that aluminium does not rust adds to the life cycle of this product. Through these explanations these videos have taught me useful information about what materials are environmentally friendly to use for the future designs and specially packaging. This can also affect so many other designers which can lead to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly planet.