5th March, 2020: Sahiba Madan
Cradle to Cradle method is a sustainable approach that helps in reusing the waste elements. It is basically a cyclic process which means it keeps repeating the steps unlike a linear process.The main objective here, is to reduce the amount of waste.
Upcycling refers to the process of reusing waste materials to generate products which are better in quality than the existing ones. This is different from recycling where waste is converted into a usable material. It is important that both the process take place in a way that they prove beneficial for the three pillars of People, Planet and Profits.
In this lecture, we had to work in pairs to create a product by upcycling any two materials. The condition here was to not introduce a third material and only using the materials assigned. It is necessary to make a product which has utility and functionality attached to it. It should be something that might solve a problem or create a new design.
The materials we got included ‘Silicone’ and ‘Wool’. The product had to be a combination of these two. The advantage here is that both of them have quite similar characteristics which makes it easier to put them to use. Characteristics like heat conductivity is low for both and tensile strength remains strong. Therefore, we tried combining these aspects while creating the product.
This class was all about research and ideation for the product and utilizing the qualities of the materials to the fullest.
The Idealist 