Design, Plastics and Sustainability – Methodological Reflections

Abstract

This paper intends to reflect on design methodologies applied to sustainability practices for the production and consumption of environmentally friendly products, and, to clarify misconceptions regarding ubiquitous materials like plastic and their impacts when compared to the alternatives available.

The results indicate that design methodologies are being adopted and implemented by stakeholders worldwide, some of which have significant participation in plastic pollution. Findings also suggest that misconceptions regarding plastics are enforced on consumers, although scientific evidence often proves otherwise. Consumer habits and behaviors represent a problematic use of these materials, thus sustainable design approaches that also contemplate the social dimension are a necessity. However, and although design methodologies seem to produce environmentally positive impacts with reliable outcomes, it was observed that future work in terms of creating an internationally uniform assessment tool could represent an important step for sustainable design approaches to be considered worldwide efficient metrics of sustainable ergonomic principles.