Game Changing Solutions

On Friday we discussed trash and solutions.  We looked first at the idea of throwing trash away, and learned that "there is no away".  Stuff we get rid of just ends up surrounding us, as we could see in pictures of trash picked up in just a 1-hour walk around town.



We then talked about solutions: incremental vs game changing.  A game changing solution is one that isn't a small improvement to the strategy of the current game, it's one that changes the rules to allow completely new strategies.

The example in the video below was how to deal with plastic bags.  The incremental solution was to give people gift cards if they brought the plastic bags in for recycling, resulting in fewer bags ending up as litter, in landfills, etc.

The game-changing solution was to organize people to get plastic bags outlawed, so they would use canvas bags instead, resulting in zero plastic bags in landfills or as litter.

The video also made the point the maybe we should design around "better" rather than "more".

On Tuesday we're going to talk to a manufacturing expert about e-waste.  Olivia emailed him and he can talk to us at 11:30 for half an hour.  He lives in Boston and will call us at lunch.

His name is Dr. John Linton.  The secret word this week is, you guessed it, "John".  Dr. Linton has worked for 25 years designing and manufacturing things related to cement, camera film, drug testers, and electronic equipment including printer cartridges, TV displays, and solar cells.  He knows a lot about electronics, what goes into making them, how they're used, and where they end up when people are done with them.