PlanningUrbanORegional

 Being mindful of what socio-technological norms we celebrate, and need of constant reflection!

Please visit my consulting web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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History has taught us that every new technological breakthrough that finds a social and business relevance today, becomes mainstream norm tomorrow, gets celebrated for a little while, until embedded issues starts to get recognised. Being mindful of what we celebrate today, means constantly reflecting on what is perceived as a good practice today, and challenging the norm only to find even better alternatives, and achieve next breakthrough as soon as possible.

This is true for any country or region, industry and sector, and examples are prolific.

An example for instance, what a waste of precious energy, manpower and time as we sort, crush, break, shred, smelt, glass, metal and plastic bottles and containers to recreate glass, metal and plastic bottles and containers once again with a fresh label. Somewhat with an illusionary sense of satisfaction that we have intercepted, retrieved and recycled the material, but at what cost? Even if we sort using AI only to crush and shread it, its still an inefficient process. Even though it may not qualify for low value reuse of material, its also not high value usage of material.

The large fraction of these bottles and containers of all sort, size and material which can be retrieved intact and reused in its current shape with very little efforts and science.

Crushing, grinding and smelting an otherwise intact (millions and more) glass bottles and metal cans, to its constituents, to rebuild the same bottle again defies all logic and sensibility, considering all the megawatts of energy that might have gone into the process over years. When a glass bottle or glass vase can technically be retrieved, refilled and reused an infinite times for instance.

All this as an example, done in a rush to celebrate something, like a technology that we seem to have mastered today and also in absence of finding an alternative like practical and scale use-case of reverse logistics and high value reuse, where bottle and metal cans go to original producers or local authorized partner/ affiliate/ distributors for refilling. This is possible only if we see the point, do the math, do policy and regulatory restructuring, brainstorm with industry and research entities, retrace the supply chain distribution path, take environmental cost into consideration and reimagin accountability matrix.

Author: Anoop Jha

Image: Author

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, I am launching urban management (urban segment), interior design and home decor services and commissioned fine artworks (design segment) in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

The design segment is also capable of serving the unique needs of expats including the Indian community in the Netherlands. 

Please visit the web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Please also check and follow my Instagram interior design page where I am starting with sharing thoughts on what makes a great interior design. Follow @urbantenets 

Also, do not forget to check my Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional 

Thank you for your attention!!]

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