Modular Auxiliarity

Here
under the ETC Chapter



3R - According to Wikipedia, "the 3R’s of reduce, reuse and recycle have been considered to be a base of environmental awareness..."



Researching on the topic, it seems there should have been 4D or even more: Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle, Recover and then onwards to the Dispose portion (w/c can also be classified into subsections).

The writeup goes on to say certain economic instruments may be considered to further strengthen behaviors and choices that relates to 3R, like reducing the sales tax or value added tax on goods made from recycling. Or perhaps, these matter then turn to the road of offsets - meaning equivalent green projects to offset the resulting pollution.

Such offset and tax incentive systems seem to indicate that we are veering away from the best solution - prevention, minimization/reduction. Emissions trading (also known as cap and trade) is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.

I suspect, corporations, politicians and the government would like this because it creates a playing field for them (to barter with the legs of the masses).



As you can see, the best priority is prevention and as such I rather see the world governments take concerted action such as:
- open alternative energy system and full scale deployment of better alternatives to the oil addiction
- prevention of activities that are can be considered as a sabotage of nature

By open system, I mean open patent and adaptation of good energy alternatives. That means any scientist, child or crackpot that offers a working solution will be paid accordingly and the working plans will be given freely to society.

And as to prevention of activities that sabotage nature, that will be too long to enumerate and it's self-explanatory by this time.

On this note, I acknowledge that the clutter of civilization is not yet easy to get away from. Industrial and consumer packaging disposition is a real problem.

However, this same problem can be turned into a means to solve auxiliary social needs (housing, for example) so that in the process, the problem of disposing stuff can be minimized - a clutter buster idea.

Having a pre-designed auxiliary use for the packaging materials will increase the intrinsic value of these items, being not limited to the discarded scrap value. A secondary market for such materials can be created so that people will not discard them carelessly (w/c result to clogging of the drainage systems and such mess).

Containers can be shaped into forms that have provision for interlocking (ala lego). People can fill them up with clay or soil/cement mixture and then use them for DIY structures such as:

- landslide prevention
- artificial aquifers
- life rafts
- floating islands or platforms for modular resort or seasteading facilities
- moulds for lamp posts or structural columns
- drip irrigation systems
- livestock structures
- knobs for electronic appliances
- parts for robotic projects
- earth houses and fences
- furnitures and shelving
- ropes and lattices for hydroponic farming
- arts, decors and sculpting


Actually, uses can be limited only to the artistic and imaginative design of people.

The aforementioned construction usage is especially complemented by portable foam cement equipments to fill the empty packages with light foam cement for housing and creation of floating water platforms.



Here is a page visualizing the interlocked objects.

Look at this simple alternative housing construction:


Consider that the empty containers are preformed for a more elaborate similar solution. Then the user of products will have additional value passed to him aside from the disposable joy that usually are the contents of products in shining packages.

In the next installment, I will try to draw some designs to flip our problems of garbage - a clutter buster ideation.

... to be continued

-------------------------


^{note: - For the purists, please pardon the noun "Auxiliarity": Auxiliary being an adjective, I just have to modify it for the purpose of this entry.}

.ciao