Starting the journey in product design with UNSDGs

Understanding UNSDGs and what are we doing to achieve the goals from this module.

Picture of art work taken from National Museum Exhibition Plastic: Remaking Our World

In recent years, I believe most of us have heard about the importance of sustainability, environmentally friendly, etc. all these terminologies and also UN SDG. What is all this about and why are people making a big fuss about it? 

From the United Nations website about UN SDGS, it says that “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” In simple words, it is a plan for all nations to improve the quality of living for the people and protect the environment. 

To complete all 17 goals by 2030, some people may ask “ Isn’t it too ambitious and how is it possible?” If you ask me I would say it is an ambitious move indeed and some people with a pessimistic mindset might have thought  “Well, we shall see for ourselves in 2030 then”. 

However, hear me out! There’s nothing wrong with setting goals as high as the sky and it’s never too late to start doing the things that can make our Earth a better place to live. Being ambitious means we care and we are eager to do the right things. Most citizens might think that all the goals are none of their business and it is the government who needs to take action especially when Singapore is already a developed country. What is there left to do? 

From the article “Top 4 Environmental Concerns In Singapore And What You Can Do About It” published on City of Good website 21 April 2020, food security is one of the concerns and it is related to goal 2 zero hunger. With 90% of our food being imported, our fate falls in the hands of other countries. There’s many more issues that Singapore is facing right now that may not be apparent. To monitor Singapore's progress in sustainable development, the SingStat Websites page on SDGs provides access to Singapore statistics on SDG targets. Despite the challenges, Singapore has achieved steady improvements in most aspects thus showing that nothing is impossible as long as there is consistent effort put in. 

However UN SDGS is not the ultimate guide for sustainable development. From the 17 goals, only goal 12 to goal 15 is about ecological sustainability. The others are mostly focused on the country's development. If conditions are allowed, different countries should come up with different strategies to contribute to the challenges faced by their environment. With all the hard work, we can bring the development of humanity to the next level. 

Enough with all these big dream talks,

how about starting with ordering adequate food for your dinner later?

The Trip to Museum

With the objective to learn more about the material we can use for our prototype in this module, a learning journey to an exhibition in the National Museum about the evolution of the revolutionary material of plastic is offered by the school. I am surprised that so many different kinds of material are used to produce plastic made from 1850 until today. Never ever had I thought that a plastic comb was considered luxury back then. Besides, imagine wearing glasses made of tortoiseshell, sounds so absurd. 

A stroll down the gallery, I realized my life has been surrounded by plastic since young. My favourite Barbie Toy, Lego and toy cars are all made of plastics. They sure gave me entertainment and happiness when I’m younger but plastic has now become a big problem to the environment. Another example disposable utensils has made our life more convenient but the impact to the environment is irreversible. In one of the exhibition boards, it says that it takes 20 to 100 uses of a reusable cup to even out the greenhouse emissions from producing a single-use cup. This made me rethink how many cups of take away bubble tea I had ordered so far and the amount can be so much scarier than we think. 

However, plastics can save lives in the medical field. Equipment such as blood and infusion bags, breathing tubes, incubators and defibrillators. Plastics embody the notion of safety, sterility and protection against deadly diseases. Some surgical equipment are preferably discarded and incinerated because it costs more to sterilise them than to purchase single-use alternatives. Sterilisation by highly aggressive agents will cause a worse environmental footprint. 

Picture of art work taken from National Museum Exhibition Plastic: Remaking Our World

The use of plastics contributes differently in different fields. It is the producers and consumers' responsibilities to make the best decisions for the environment. Relating back to this module, our group will try our best to come out with a solution that is beneficial to the development of society and protect the environment at the same time. 

The two UNSDGs that our group is focusing on

The first UNSDG is goal 13 to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. The final goal is to make the world a greener place to live. With the increased of temperature and raising of sea water, the planet emergency alarm is obviously being turn on. Instead of complaining about the hot weather and unbearable heat, lets think of a way and work together to fight against this challenge. One of the reason for climate change to be happening is because of excessive released of greenhouse gases. With the greenhouse gases trapping the heat in our atmosphere, the temperature is most likely to increase in the next few years too. One of our group idea is that if we can create a chemical device that can transform an amount of greenhouse gases into standard air, with this devices being set all over the world, it can reduce the percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmospheric air.

The second UNSDG is goal 12 is to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. Last year 9 November 2023, CNA release a news "Environmental experts sound the alarm on how fast Singapore's only landfill Semakau is filling". Semakau landfill is expected to reach full capacity by 2030. Although we cannot expand the size of Semakau island, we can find a way to reduce our waste and also recycle them. To contribute in this matter, our group have the idea to design a device or a system to regenerate the waste into something useful.

The chemical device that we have in our mind

The first idea that we have is to improvise and design a new algae bioreactor. An algae bioreactor is a machine that utilizes carbon dioxide, wastewater and algae to produce biomass and oxygen.

From the ICIMOD website, it has state that multiple sites have been set up in Pulchowk and Jawalakhel in Kathmandu, Nepal and it is still under laboratory experiments. It is interesting how a small plant algae can have a great contribution in purifying the polluted air as well as the toxic water. The wastewater provides nutrients for the algae to grow and thus releasing oxygen back to the atmospheric air. So our team has decided to have more research on this topic and thus come out with a improvised algae bioreactor that can help to contribute in this matter.