Let's save 'endangered technical species'

People leave behind nutrients not only in the biosphere. They also express their intentions in the technosphere. There is much talk today about national debts, budget deficits, and raising deficit ceilings. One U.S. study notes that every baby born to American parents is born with approximately $45,000 in debt to his or her name, before even holding a job. (Other studies calculate the amount at three times as much.)

We think society is setting up a similar debt when it comes to technical nutrients. “Planned obsolescence” dates back to the 1930s as a mode of stimulating economies, by making consumer goods break down or go out of style after a particular time period so as to instigate more purchasing. It gained currency in the 1950s.

But because of society’s design strategies, that planned obsolescence rings with it a significant debt in terms of the raw technical materials put out of industry’s reach in landfills.

We know society has the capability of being more careful with its raw materials. How do people treat gold, for example? Because society values gold, no one simply throws it out to be mashed in a dump or melted into a monstrous mess in an incinerator. That is unthinkable. Everyone would wonder how anybody could accidentally throw their gold away and how we could dig that gold out of the mountainous tons of waste to reuse it.

Instead, people traditionally sell it in its whole form. Or they pass it down to their children. Or they sell it to be remelted and made into gold of equal value.

Now think of cobalt, used in medical implants. Indium used LED lamps. Neodymium for wind turbines. Lithium for batteries.

These rare-earth and heavy metals are truly precious because they allow us to have the needed and valued goods, such as lifesaving devices, renewable power, computers, cars and so on.

但是，如果人们一直在设计一种物质使用而不是重复使用，我们将“用光”清洁未来制造产品所需的技术营养物质。这意味着我们都会担心“限制增长”，因为我们觉得我们已经用尽了资源。由于从材料复制的角度来看，几乎所有当前电器的设计次优，因此有可能使它们用来使它们被用尽。计算机，汽车和割草机也是如此。

就像化石燃料一样，地球持有的金属和基本元素的数量似乎很广。但是最终这些技术营养素是有限的。实际上，人类可用的唯一传入的复发是太阳能，雨水和偶尔的流星。在我们的工作中，我们开始称这些金属为“濒危技术物种”，以纯粹的形式传达其潜在损失的严重性：提取金属需要大量能量。如果人们重复使用它们，那么（潜在的）重新配置和重新配置所需的能量要少得多。然而，人们不会尽可能地回收它们。

像化石燃料一样，金属的资本就像是货币一样，人们正在污染和耗尽几代人可以以纯形式可用的东西。

Also, like fossil fuels, the technical nutrients are dispersed unequally around the globe. China currently supplies most of the world’s rare-earth metals, and it has used that fact to express political displeasure toward certain trading partners from time to time, sporadically interrupting the supply. Nations need not be in a state of anxiety about access to productive materials when people can be using and reusing the resources already available more wisely.

当然，金属永远不会完全消失。它们将变得更加易于访问，提取更昂贵。我们的后代可能不是在大块的大块中开采铜，而是通过分子在广阔的城市垃圾场中进行分子。他们还将处理这些技术物种在水和空气中的毒性存在。

Years ago, Michael analyzed a television set to see how many chemicals it contained. The answer: 4,360. So many chemicals you the customer wouldn’t even want to know, and those components were off-gassing into your home every day. With Michael’s help, Philips produced the Econova television in 2010, which is designed for almost complete disassembly. It is PVC-free, and its cables are halogen-free. The TV uses only 40 watts of power when on and even has a solar remote control.

We know we can design better for the planet. We know we have the power to do so.

这种物质滥用对社会公平产生了严重的影响。对于儿童而言，出生于一个纯粹的技术营养素不足的世界肯定是不公平的。

It is not fair to leave a clean air and water deficit because our processes and manufacturing emit polluting elements of all kinds into the air and water around the world.

And it is not fair to leave a safety deficit because so many harmful and toxic chemicals are put into products with no idea of where they will end up or how to prevent them from leaching into biological systems.

It is certainly not optimal by any means for children to be born into a world in which unnecessary chemicals (meaning chemicals that do not optimize healthy human or organic life, such as flame retardants) are accumulating in natural systems. It is certainly not fair to design products and systems that cause irreversible damage. And it is not fair if mother’s milk is contaminated by chemicals that are bioaccumulated through exposure to toxins and would not be legal to sell on a store shelf. We call that “chemical harassment.”

There are more than 150 studies showing that Bisphenol A, used in the production of plastics, is harmful to our health as well as to the environment. Only industry-financed studies show BPA to be relatively harmless. Issues like this one are not about suing someone or about placing blame.

Start with good intentions right from the beginning of the design process. Optimizing materials means choosing the fabrics or metals or polymers that begin with goodness in mind.

Sometimes, when a technical nutrient known to be a toxin or endocrine disrupter exists in a product meant to be used in biological systems — BPA in a baby bottle, for example — it is replaced. But the substitute ingredient seems “less bad” only because people do not know enough about how the chemical interacts in biological systems (many substitutes for BPA use the same processing that causes the problem with BPA). This blind use is not a solution.

即使化学物质经过数十年的研究，一些仅怀疑是麻烦的化学物质也会保留在配方中。他们在世界范围内的使用延长了，将风险推向了未来。我们可以问：“当我们不知道它们会如何在人体或其他生物系统中反应时，为什么仍然使用它们？”

然后是法规排除的化学物质，但没有附加溶液。例如，立法要求将铅从其他五个要素中删除欧洲的消费电子产品，但该法规仅指出该物体应无铅。它没有积极识别到利用。所以这就是发生的事情。

铅焊料经常被含有二晶刀的焊料代替，当时这似乎是一个好主意，因为鞭毛被认为毒性较小，但是当释放到生物圈时，它仍然是毒性的。作为重金属，它仍然引起人们的关注。同样，Bismuth几乎从来都不是自行开采的，因为它不够盈利。通常，它用钨或铅提取。因此，用于用作铅替代品的需要匹犬的采矿在中国造成了大量的铅开采。意想不到的后果是更多的领先采矿！铅淹没了市场，成本下降，由于采矿而导致的铅污染，中国的水质恶化，而更多的铅则最终出现在其他不受管制的产品中。

Is it fair for a standard or a regulation for a product in one country to cause damage and degradation elsewhere? Is it fair to respect the health needs in Europe while damaging the health of people in China?

当然不是。

良好的设计，意图，以牢记升级的目标，使事情随着时间的流逝而变得更好：公正，公平，健康，安全，所有人的质量在所有经济水平上，甚至在遥远的地方。

Next page:Recognizing interdependence

正如我们在1992年在第二个汉诺威原则中所说的那样，“认识相互依存关系。人类设计的要素与自然世界相互作用并依赖于自然世界，在每个规模上都具有广泛而多样的含义。将设计注意事项扩展到识别遥远的效果。”

设计的公平性不仅是道德问题，而且是定义质量的道德问题。如果您设计的物体造成伤害，破坏环境或危害儿童的健康，您是设计师的“好”？当然，每个人都会犯错误或错误估计。我们每个人每天都做。它们本质上是创造力的一部分。但是，如果您故意在工作中使用毒素或可疑材料进行设计，那么您的才华横溢？

We can even look at this issue of quality in design using the old standards — cost, aesthetics and performance. Is your electrical transformer insulation a good design if the cost of cleaning up the PCBs on the rivers where the factory is located or in the field where the equipment is deployed is astronomical? Is your child’s toy aesthetically pleasing if she is in danger of brain damage from exposure to the lead? Are a soda and its bottle actually “performing” well if antimony is leached from the bottle into the acidic liquid and is dispensed to the person every time he takes a sip?

产品和系统的质量意味着它们不会损害人们，缩小其生活和自由的可能性或降低生活质量。

If people think of children, of the future, they can keep the focus on how to make products and systems intergenerationally generous. They can figure out how to generously give back while taking — and give back for generations to come. They can even start small in this thinking.

We have wondered why society seems compelled to only worry about the negative element leaching into our biological systems. The upcycle lets us think of moving beyond toxic and even beyond nontoxic to potentially beneficial. Bill recently designed a door handle that would transfer, if anything at all, magnesium molecules to your hand upon touch. Many people take mineral supplements in tablet form. Minerals essential to human health could be part of everyday interactions with functional objects.

Personally, we’ve found that in projecting forward while designing, with the greatest generosity in mind, we design for those with the most modest means as well as for those who can afford anything they want, and for all generations.

Instead of the tragedy of the commons, let’s upcycle the commons.

绿色分子图像Victoriya通过shutterstock

Excerpted fromTHE UPCYCLE: BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY—DESIGNING FOR ABUNDANCE威廉·麦克唐纳（William McDonough）和迈克尔·布劳加特（Michael Braungart）于2013年4月由法拉尔（Farrar），施特劳斯（Straus）和吉鲁（Giroux）部门的北点出版社（North Point Press）出版。版权所有©2013，威廉·麦克唐纳和迈克尔·布劳加特。版权所有。