Overview

The concept of 'Cleaner' design attempts to reduce or minimise the environmental impact of a product over its lifecycle without impacting on quality. A clean design may, for example, use a minimum number of components, have ease of disassembly and have easily re-used or recyclable components. In addition to eliminating waste this concept may also increase product functionality and profitability.

Specific

You will be supplied, in a pre-arranged laboratory session in F12, with an item of everyday technology e.g. hair dryer or steam iron, which you will dismantle under technician supervision.

Based on your findings during the disassembly and from subsequent research, prepare a report (2000 words approx) evaluating the product with respect to its cleaner design aspects.

Areas of investigation should include:

Components: Identifying unnecessary parts

Construction: How efficient is the construction?

Materials: Are they reusable/recyclable/biodegradable?

Packaging(if supplied): Identifying unnecessary packaging

Dismantling: Ease of dismantling in time and cost terms

In-use emissions and the regulatory environment