index > Today's Earth, Our Future > 7. Let's not be wasteful > Making Products Recyclable

Making Products Recyclable

While it's important for us to recycle items like cans, glass and other products properly after we use them, it's also practical to have an efficient system in which products are sure to be collected.

For example, in Japan there's a disposable camera called the QuickSnap, which is basically film in a small plastic case with a lens attached. This camera can only be used once, but interestingly enough, after you finished up the film, you don't remove it and throw the plastic case away.

Here's why: it's designed so that the film can't be taken out of the case without the right tools, so you need to drop the camera off at a photo shop with the film inside in order to get it out to develop your photos! At the photo shop, they'll take the film out of the case with a special tool, develop it, and when the pictures are ready, you go pick them up. Then what happens to the case after the film is removed? Well, in fact, after dropping off the camera, you don't have to worry about the case anymore--the photo shop recycles it for you!

And what happens next is also worth mentioning: The plastic cases are sent to a factory where they're taken apart, inspected, and then used to make brand new cameras! This kind of recycling system, where a manufacturer (the company that makes the product) designs the most efficient way to recycle when designing the product itself is called "cyclic production." (By the way, the word "efficient"--pronounced "Ee-Fish-Ent"--means time- and effort-saving, in case you didn't know!) Cyclic production is the most advanced method for recycling in the world. What's smart about it is that it's based on the idea that the user can only gain full use of the product after the item is collected by the manufacturer. No wonder there's a high rate of collection and recycling of the QuickSnap camera!

Another neat feature is that this camera is designed so that no screws are needed to connect its parts, which makes it easier to disassemble (take apart) the camera, reuse the parts and recycle it all over again. Also, it's made of very few plastic parts and, where possible, the pieces even have the same size and shape to keep the recycling process simple. Since the QuickSnap first came out in the stores, its manufacturer has designed a whole series of newer models, but they are also designed with the same size case so that the company can continue using the same machines to recycle the camera parts. Smart, aren't they?

So, what this means is that as long as companies design their products backed by systems in which their parts are collected and recycled for cyclic production, there will be freedom for them to change the product with a new design and other recyclable materials.

Can you think of any other examples of a system where you can get a new product only after you returned the used one? How about cellular phones?

For those of us who use cellular phones, when we buy a new one to replace old or out-dated phones, it can be such a headache to transfer all of our old data into our new phones. This is why, in Japan, shops that sell cellular phones provide the service of transferring all our data--like our friends' phone numbers and our schedules--from our old phones to our new ones. Since all the data is put into the new phone, we don't really need the old one anymore. It would be great if these shops also created a recycling system for used cellular phones, don't you think?

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