Sustainable Design, the 6 Rs and Product Life Cycle

Designing for the planet

Every product a designer makes uses resources and, in the end, becomes waste, so good design tries to lower that impact. This is sustainable design: meeting needs now without using up resources or harming the environment for the future. Designers use the 6 Rs, a set of choices from reducing material to recycling it, to make greener products. They also think about the whole product life cycle, from digging up the raw materials to throwing the product away, and try to reduce the harm at each stage. This module covers sustainable design, the 6 Rs, and the product life cycle.

Sustainable design words

Learn these terms before the ideas are described. They name the choices a designer can make.

Match each R to what it means

Reuse against recycle

Two of the 6 Rs are often mixed up, but they are different actions with different amounts of effort and energy.

Which of the 6 Rs is it?

A designer makes a product easy to fix so it lasts longer instead of being thrown away. Which of the 6 Rs is this?

• Repair
• Refuse
• Recycle
• Reduce

Reading a product life cycle

A product does not begin at the shop or end at the bin. Its life cycle runs from extracting the raw materials, through manufacturing and distributing the product, to its use and finally its disposal. Each stage has an environmental cost: energy used, waste made, pollution created. A designer who thinks across the whole cycle can cut that cost, for example by choosing a recycled material, designing the product to last, or making it easy to take apart and recycle at the end. When you answer, name the stage, name its impact, and say how the design reduces it. Whole cycle, real impact, better choice: that is sustainable design thinking.

Pick the sustainable choices

Select every choice that makes a product more sustainable.

• Using less material in the design
• Choosing a recycled material
• Designing the product to last and be repaired
• Making it hard to recycle so it goes to landfill
• Designing it to break quickly so more are sold

Order the product life cycle

Put the stages of a product life cycle in the order they happen.

• Extract the raw materials
• Manufacture the product
• Distribute it to where it is sold
• The product is used
• Dispose of or recycle it at the end

Complete the sustainability facts

Meeting needs now without harming the future is _____ design. Using less material is to _____. Processing a used material into something new is to _____. The stages from raw material to disposal are the product life _____.

One bottle, six choices

Think about a simple drinks bottle and how the 6 Rs could shape it. A designer might refuse to add pointless extra packaging around it. They might reduce the plastic by making the walls thinner. They could design it to be reused, sturdy enough to refill many times. They might make it easy to repair a screw top rather than replace the whole bottle. They could choose a material that is easy to recycle, and label it clearly so it is not thrown in the wrong bin. And they might rethink the whole idea, offering a refill service so far fewer bottles are made at all. One everyday object, and every one of the 6 Rs has something to offer. That is sustainable design in practice.

Tap the 6 Rs

Tap the TWO words that are part of the 6 Rs of sustainable design.

• reduce
• recycle
• repaint
• resell

The sustainable design run

Answer each one correctly to keep your lives. Choose the best answer.

Choose the greener option

Read each situation and choose the more sustainable answer.

• A shopper is offered lots of extra packaging they do not need. Which R lets them respond?
• A designer wants to cut the impact of a product at the end of its life. What helps most?
• A glass bottle is emptied. What is the most sustainable first choice?

Build a point about sustainability

Choose the word for each gap to complete one clear point about sustainable design.

Explain sustainable design

A friend thinks a designer only has to make a product look good and work. Using what you have learned, explain how a designer can make a product more sustainable.

• Explain what sustainable design means
• Explain the 6 Rs and give examples
• Explain the stages of a product life cycle
• Explain how a designer lowers environmental impact across the life cycle