Recycling our gadgets

I came across this article in Wired recently which is really opportune for a project we are working on at the moment – which is centred around cradle to cradle products. While the biological cradle to cradle is fairly self explanatory the mechanical version of cradle to cradle relies on a service that should be provided by the supplier of the product. The design of the product should also make it (as easy as) possible for different components and materials to be separated and so no loss in 'contaminated' materials will be an issue, and so the materials will be able to continue at their same quality or and over again.

In Europe the WEEE directives touched on this concept. With produces and retailers now being responsible for the lifespan and so disposal of electronic goods, from memory it was initially quite a narrow band of products that would be covered in the directives, but it was a start. The above picture taken form the Wired article really put's into perspective the amount and variety of 'gadgets' out there and also how complicated they seem to be in terms of disassembly.