DTR CA3 JOURNAL
Eco-design & Countercultures
The main difference between the Karung Guni Man and Jackie Tan is that the Karung Guni man only collects the recyclable materials and does not recycle them himself. After he collects all the materials and sells them, he probably does not know what happens to the materials after that and how the materials are being/ will be recycled. This shows that the Karung Guni Man is not recycling the materials but only helping to collect them from residents for recycling.
On the other hand, Jackie Tan showed procedures as to how we can recycle the materials to make it into something more useful such as a pencil holder as shown within the video.
Jackie Tan has applied the Cradle to cradle design initiative as he is taking actions himself to recycle the items.
Our ethical role as designers is that we should try to reduce waste as much as possible when we choose any type of materials for interior design. We should also recycle materials that we don’t need/ is in excess. In addition, we can also use eco-friendly and recycleable materials when we are designing the interior space for our client so that we will be reduce the amount of waste that will often be dumped into landfills. The earth is small as compared to the other planets and eventually, we will run out of place to dump our rubbish, so we must take action in reducing, reusing and recycling our waste. We must participate in helping the world to become a better place.
People often lump rubbish together with recyclable as we find it too troublesome to separate them before sending the ones that are unrecyclable to the rubbish chute. There would even be times when we want to recycle but we don’t really know which category it belongs to. It is more convenient for us to throw away everything at once rather than having to sort them accordingly. However, what consumers don’t understand is the impact of not recycling. If we don’t recycle, materials such as plastic will eventually be left behind as they are not biodegradable, and this would result in the accumulation of plastic which would often float into the sea. Sea creatures such as the turtle, will often mistake the plastic bags as jellyfish and would consume them without hesitation. As a result, these turtles choke on the plastic bags and pass away before they would be washed up upon the shores of the beach. In order to save these creatures, we should all do our part in recycling rather than dumping them in random places.
Even though Singapore is well-known as a clean and green city, we are not really a clean and green city. The reason as to why Singapore is so clean right now is thanks to the effort of the cleaners that took their time to clear the rubbish and tidy up the place. We are too used to having cleaners around that sometimes we forgot to tidy up behind ourselves which is why we should start taking initiative so that the rubbish does not take up space and that we will be able to save the sea creatures/ animals.
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People have been referring to Singapore as a ‘CLEANED CITY’