Designed to last - could better design cure our throwaway culture

📖 Bài đọc (reading passage)

Designed to last: 
Could better design cure our throwaway culture
Jonathan Chapman, a senior lecture at the University of Brighton, UK, is one of a new breed of “sustainable designers’. Like many of us, they are concerned about the huge waste (which is) associated with Western consumer culture and the damage this does to the environment. Some, like Chapman, aim to create objects (that) we will want to keep rather than discard. with recycling in mind. The waste (which is) entailed in our fleeting relationships with consumer durables is colossal.

Domestic power tools, such as electric drills, are a typical example of such waste. However much DIY the purchaser plans to do, the truth is that these things are thrown away having been used, on average, for just ten minutes. Most will serve conscience time, gathering dust on a shelf in the garage; people are reluctant to admit that they have wasted their money. However, the end is inevitable: thousands of years in landfill waste sites. In its design, manufacture, packaging, transportation and disposal, a power tool consumes many times its own weight in resources, all for a shorter active lifespan than that of the average small insect.

To understand why we have become so wasteful, we should look to the underlying motivation of consumers. ‘People own things to give expression to who they are, and to show what group of people they feel they belong to,’ Chapman says. In a world of mass production, however, that symbolism has lost much of its potency.  For most of human history, people had an intimate relationship with objects (that) they used or treasured.  Often they made the objects themselves, or family members passed them on. For more specialist objects, people relied on expert manufacturers living close by, whom they probably knew personally. Chapman points out that all these factors gave objects a history – a narrative – and an emotional connection that today’s mass production cannot match.  Without these personal connections, consumerist culture instead idolizes novelty.  People know that they can’t buy happiness, but the chance to remake ourselves with glossy, box-fresh products seems irresistible. When the novelty fades we simply renew the excitement by buying more.

Chapman’s solution is what he calls "emotionally durable design". He says (that) the challenge for designers is to create things (that) we want to keep. This may sound like a tall order, but it can be surprisingly straightforward.  A favorite pair of old jeans, for example, just do not have the right feel until they have been worn and washed a hundred times. Walter Stahel, visiting professor at the University of Surrey, calls it the "teddy-bear factor”. No matter how ragged and worn a favorite teddy becomes, we don't rush out and buy another one.  As adults, our teddy bear connects us to our childhoods and this protects it from obsolescence. Stahel argues that this is what sustainable design needs to do with more products.

The Information Age was supposed to lighten our economies and reduce our impact on the environment, but, in fact, the reverse seems to be happening. We have simply added information technology to the industrial era and hastened the developed world's metabolism. The cure is hardly rocket science: minimize waste and energy use, stop moving stuff around so much and use people more.  So what will post-throwaway consumerism look like?  It might be as simple as installing energy-saving light bulbs, more efficient washing machines, or choosing locally produced groceries with less packaging. In general, we will spend less on goods and more on services. Instead of buying a second car, for example, we might buy into a car-sharing network. Rather than following our current wasteful practices, we will buy less and rent a lot more; why own things such as tools that you use infrequently, especially things are likely to be updated all the time?

Consumer durables will be sold with plans already in place for their disposal. Electronic goods will be designed to be recyclable, with the extra cost added to the retail price. Following Chapman’s notion of emotionally durable design, there will be a move away from mass production and towards tailor – made articles and products designed and manufactured with greater craftsmanship, products which will be repaired rather than replaced, in the same way as was done in our grandparents’ time.  Companies will replace profit from bulk sales by servicing and repairing products chosen because we want them to last.

Chapman acknowledges that it will be a challenge to persuade people to buy fewer goods, and ones that they intend to keep. At the moment, price competition between retailers makes it cheaper for consumers to replace rather than repair.

Products designed to be durable and emotionally satisfying are likely to be more expensive, so how will we be persuaded to choose sustainability? Tim Cooper, from the Centre for Sustainable Consumption at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK, points out that many people are already happy to pay a premium for quality, and that they also tend to value and care more for expensive goods. is also positive: “People are ready to keep things for longer,” he says, “The problem is that a lot of industries don’t know how to do that.” Chapman believes that sustainable design is here to stay. “The days when large corporations were in a position to choose whether to jump on the sustainability bandwagon or not are coming to an end,” he says. Whether this is also the beginning of the end of the throwaway society remains to be seen.

❓ Câu hỏi (questions)

What does ‘conscience time’ imply in paragraph 2?

Wish they had not bought the power tool.

Want to make sure the tool is stored safely

Feel that the tool will increase in value in the future

Would feel guilty if they threw the tool away immediately.

Jonathan Chapman uses the word ‘narrative’ in the third paragraph to refer to the fact that the owner...

told a story about how the item was bought

was aware of how the item had come into being

Felt that the item became more useful over time.

was told that the item had been used for a long time.

In the third paragraph, the writer suggests that mass-produced goods are

inferior in quality

less likely to be kept for a long time

attractive because of their lower prices

less tempting than goods which are traditionally produced

Lack of personal connection to goods is described as producing

a belief that older goods are superior

an attraction to well- designed packaging

a desire to demonstrate status through belongings

a desire to purchase a constant stream of new items.

Jeans and teddy bears are given as examples of goods which

have been very well designed

take a long time to show wear

are valued more as they grow older

are used by the majority of the population

People often buy goods that they make little use of.

Understanding the reasons for buying goods will help to explain why waste occurs.

People already rent more goods than they buy.

Companies will charge less to repair goods in the future.

A cure for our wasteful habits

﻿
The writer believes that the recipe for reducing our impact on the environment is a simple one. He states that we should use less energy for things such as lighting or ﻿, and buy ﻿ that will not need to be moved across long distances.
Some expensive items such as ﻿could be shared, and others which may be less expensive but which are not needed often, such as ﻿, could be rented instead of being purchased. He believes that manufacturers will need to design high-technology items such as ﻿so that they can be recycled more easily.
﻿

mobile phones

clothing

tools

laundry

bottles

food

heating

cars

teddy bears

🔥 Answer key (đáp án và giải thích)

Giải thích chi tiết

✅Phân tích câu hỏi (Multiple Choice):

Câu hỏi hỏi: Cụm “conscience time” trong paragraph 2 ám chỉ điều gì? Đây là câu hỏi về nghĩa theo ngữ cảnh (idiomatic/author’s wording), nên mình phải đọc cả cụm câu chứa nó để hiểu thái độ của người dùng đối với món đồ.

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✅Locate thông tin liên quan: Thông tin nằm ở paragraph 2, đoạn nói về domestic power tools (máy khoan, dụng cụ DIY). Cách tìm nhanh: nhìn thấy cụm “conscience time” trong đoạn 2 và đọc luôn 2 câu quanh đó (vì nghĩa của nó được giải thích ngay sau).

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✅Đọc thông tin liên quan theo Linearthinking:

(1) Câu dẫn ngữ cảnh (người ta dùng rất ít rồi vứt): Simplified: these things are thrown away having been used (...) for just ten minutes .

(2) Câu có “conscience time” (định nghĩa qua ngữ cảnh): Simplified: Most will serve conscience time , gathering dust on a shelf (...) ; people are reluctant to admit that they have wasted their money .

(3) Câu chốt: cuối cùng vẫn sẽ bị vứt (nên “conscience time” chỉ là trì hoãn vì áy náy): Simplified: However , the end is inevitable : (...) in landfill waste sites .

Ý của cụm “conscience time”: Đó là khoảng thời gian người ta không vứt ngay, để đỡ thấy tội lỗi/đỡ áy náy vì mới mua mà đã vứt (hoặc vì đã lỡ phí tiền). Thực tế thì món đồ chỉ nằm đó bám bụi, rồi cuối cùng vẫn bị đem đi vứt.

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✅Chọn đáp án: Đáp án đúng: D. Would feel guilty if they threw the tool away immediately. Vì “conscience” = lương tâm/áy náy, và câu sau giải thích tâm lý “reluctant to admit they have wasted their money” → họ để đó một thời gian cho đỡ thấy mình phí phạm, chứ không phải để dùng tiếp nghiêm túc.

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❌ Những option dễ chọn nhầm (bẫy skim/scan):

A. Wish they had not bought the power tool. Nếu skim thấy “wasted their money” có thể chọn A. Nhưng câu không nói họ hối hận vì mua; trọng tâm là họ không vứt ngay vì ngại/cắn rứt, nên mới có “conscience time”.
B. Want to make sure the tool is stored safely. Nếu skim thấy “on a shelf in the garage” có thể tưởng là “cất cho an toàn”. Nhưng tác giả viết “gathering dust” (bám bụi) → thái độ tiêu cực, không phải “bảo quản cẩn thận”.
C. Feel that the tool will increase in value in the future. Không có chi tiết nào về “tăng giá trị”; ngược lại, tác giả nhấn mạnh kết cục vẫn là landfill.

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