Designed to Be Degradable
Being tied to industrialization, which has led to global warming, design has a hand in transforming the Earth. No change in the human relationship with the environment can occur without the involvement of designers. There are many environmentally responsible design strategies. One involves using other species for producing objects. Solutions like this can help us reduce our carbon footprint, improve biodegradation, or even, with the help of synthetic biology, build new and better materials, on a DNA level, for the organisms involved in their production. Yet this approach does not solve a problem at the heart of a profit-based relationship between human beings and their environment – in other words, anthropocentrism. Through anthropological reflection (Anna Tsing, Tim Ingold), this article suggests that people can radically redefine their approach to objects, moving toward a cooperation between species and an acceptance of destruction and decay.