In class we were put into groups of about 6, and each group was given a faulty product (donated by Breville) to disassemble. Our group was given an iron. It took us about 27 minutes to disassemble the product into different materials as best as we physically could. Below are photos of the different groups of materials from the iron.
After this exercise is was made clear a few improvements that could be made in terms of recycle-ability and ability for repair. For recycle-ability, is is important that the different materials used in the product are easy to detach from one another, so they can be recycled more easily. To better this, we as a group decided that we could change the majority of the plastic parts (which are currently mostly polycarbonate and polypropylene) to be all one plastic (polypropylene) as to reduce the amount of things that need to be taken apart in the recycling process.
Also there are a few parts of the iron which are polypropylene with a silicon overmould. This means that it is very hard to recycle this part. These overmoulds are normally there to help with grip, so as an alternative to this, we decided that there could be textures moulded into the plastic instead.
The part of an iron we thought was the most likely to fail was the power cable. Because this is a difficult part to replace currently, the iron is usually thrown out instead of repairing it. To help make it easier to replace this part, we designed the power cable with a pull tab, so that if it breaks and is returned to Breville, it is easy to replace just that part instead of the whole iron.
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