E-Textile: E-Waste

V2 E-textile workspace June 21st 2012

Introduction presentation byMika Satomi

How do we deal with the waste created by E-textile?

There are two kinds of waste:

- waste created in production- when e-textile project/product ends its life

Working Manual for production waste

Design Guidelines for end of Life issue

waste created in production

-conductive fabric-conductive thread-regular fabric-regular thread-cables/wires-legs of components-solder

-Silver plated 76% Nylon, 24% elastic fiber fabric -Copper plated polyester-Carbon impregnated black polyethylene film

-70% bamboo fiber and 30% Silver-6% Silver/nylon + 84% Rayon Jersey Knit

-Silver plated thread -Copper/Tin with Kevlar Conductive Thread (KG 7314 7×1)-Silver-Plated with Kevlar Conductive Thread (KG 7077 3×1 14/ooo)-Stainless steel thread (Bekinox VN12/1*275/100Z)-Gold plated polyester thread Gunze & Mitsufuji (ETC SI30)

when e-textile project/product ends its life

What can we do?:

-Separating electronics components for recycling

-Discarding conductive textile material (heavy metal) in “correct way”

-Separating metal content on fabric (poppers, zippers, plugs)

or put it in a box and keep it in the closet for another 100 years...

Separation for Re-cycling

Separable design:

-What should be separable? -How will it be separated?-What are the design technique choices for separable design?

How much of e-textiles fit with current recycle system? And what other recycle system we will need if we were to demand in future?

What will be the design choices?

For exampleIs it better to embroider? Or better to use fusible?

Can we create a design guideline to inform us the design choices and its consequences?

Working Manual for production waste

Design Guidelines for end of Life issue

Considerations:

What is the life cycle of the object? (how robust should it be?)- Is it something that last for 100 years? Or 1 year??>> if it is for 100 years of use, robustness is more important than separable design

How many copies are going to be made? Is it one-of? 100? 100,000??>> the impact of the waste is different, but also the techniquesYou can use in production differs as well.

.. and what other considerations should be made??

Knowledge:

How toxic are they? Which material is more “evil” in terms ofEnvironmental impact?We call them “conductive fabric”, but they contain different Kinds of metal and applied in different ways.Do we know which materials contain what? How can we discard them? (can we toss in a trash bin?)

What does it mean to re-cycle?Some of the recycle schemes are down cycling, meaning there will be a waste at the end.

.. and what are the other kinds of knowledge we need?