I enjoyed this article on Core77, even if I disagree with some of the author's premises:
Design for Disassembly: This Old Idea is the Wave of the Future
Although Templin insists that “consumption-based capitalism isn't going anywhere”¹, she acknowledges that something has got to change about how goods are designed.
Design for Disassembly (DfD) is the straightforward design method and philosophy that ensures that all elements of a product can be disassembled for repair and for "end of life." This allows for and encourages repairs, with the result that a product's life cycle is prolonged; and it allows for a product to be taken apart at the end of its life so that each component can be reclaimed as a technical nutrient (i.e. recycled) or biological nutrient (i.e. composted). Among other shifts in thinking and making, this means minimizing materials, using simple mechanical fasteners instead of adhesives, clearly labeling components with their material type, and ensuring components can be disassembled with everyday tools.
This is the first piece in a four-part series, and the only one published so far. I don’t know if Templin will reckon with how her employers’ business models depend upon people throwing things away instead of repairing them. But I still find it encouraging when people who don’t share my political outlook nevertheless embrace useful pieces of it.
Design for Disassembly won’t necessarily bring about degrowth, just as degrowth won’t necessarily bring about our liberation. “Necessary but insufficient” is still necessary.
¹ “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” ―Ursula K. Le Guin