Because the midterm was Monday and Thursday’s lecture covered “Applying the Principles of Green Engineering,” this response will focus on the article alone. Green engineering is an amazing thing. It seems like the clear “next step” for us to take in terms of industrial development, but it also seems like science fiction.
The three main ideas of green engineering, that waste is food, we should use current solar income, and that we should celebrate diversity, seem like good tenets to not only base an industry on, but a lifestyle. The idea of waste as food should resonate with anyone who recycles or composts. Many people advocate for an end to oil and the rise of green power. And diversity should agree with people both on the surface, and on a deeper level. Most people know about cultural and species diversity, but, as the article detailed, we must also consider the diversity of locale. Each place on this planet has its own unique environment, and its own resources and challenges. We must take all of them into account when determining how to proceed most effectively (and this is sustainable development).
A product that is “commercially productive, socially beneficial, and ecologically intelligent” meets the triple bottom line almost by definition. And the article doesn’t just outline a plan for creating such a wondrous product in the future; a couple instances of actual application are described. I immediately have to ask, “what’s the catch?” Do the products come apart easily, are they scratchy, are they prohibitively expensive? I couldn’t quickly find answers to those questions, but Professor Alexandratos seemed to think they were reliable in those areas. I then asked, “but are they still around? Why haven’t I heard of them?” It seems that DesignTex, which invented the sustainable fabric by 1993, still exists and is still committed to producing a green product through green means.
On the other hand, the Shaw carpet company described later in the paper does not seem to fully emphasize its environmental repute. The main page of their website does not mention ecological advantages; only by navigating to different pages of the site are certain “environmentally friendly” products found. It seems that Shaw does still use the Nylon 6 material advertised in the article, but this information is hard to find and not well-emphasized.
This brings me to yet another question. Why are these systems not the main selling point of the products? I would think such environmental advantages would find an enormous market in the ecologically-conscious portion of our society (the same portion that buys exclusively organic food and drives hybrid cars). I was under the impression that being seen as environmentally conscious was, if not actually useful to the environment, at least trendy and popular. Do these products not have a large enough market to be a main selling feature? If price is the obstacle, I can think of a way we might better spend some of the subsidies we give to oil and gas companies. Barring that, government owned or rented buildings and manufacturing process should make use of these techniques to whatever extent they can.
My main concern now is that this article is 9 years old. Where have we gotten in that span of time? I can’t think of any such ecologically beneficial products off the top of my head, with the exception of organic farming and dry cleaning. Even then, I question to what extent production of “organic” foods and products actually resemble the process described in the article.
