Products that prick your conscience 13

[3dKiwi]

Just a thought, but do any other members face a dilemma regarding the items they produce?
As a plastics toolmaker/drafter I have always avoided the bottle/packaging industry, as the problems relating to disposal are all too obvious.
This may seem rather trivial, but how about people involved in the manufacture of land mines, for example?

DC

 

[JoeTank]

A number of years ago, I left the industrial manufacturing industry to become a consultant. For personal reasons I chose not to try to sell services to the tobacco industry. Over the years they have approached my employer for services and I was part of the team for their projects, but I still did not get a warm fuzzy at the end of the job.

Steve Braune
Tank Industry Consultants

http://www.tankindustry.com

 

[patdaly]

DC,
I guess you have to look at it like this, what if the people who conceived and developed the Atomic Bomb had not worked on the project? Some would say, hurray, others would obviously not be here. The sad fact is, it still would have been developed, just not at the exact moment. That may sound cruel, but we all face the same thing every day, perhaps not on such a grand scale.
I know sooner or later something I work on will get someone hurt or killed, all I can do is remove as many pitfalls as possible. The same would apply had I worked on the Atom Bomb, only in that case, speed to production would be the overriding concern.

 

[bubb375]

DC-

It is prudent to perhaps think that applying high standards of ethics to your everyday job will somehow make the world a better place. But with that thought, one could conceive that something you engineer today could somehow become the foundation for an engineered device that would one day evolve after generations and generations of iterations into the doomsday machine itself.

The mere thought that one could be responsible for such an idea would force you to become a hermit!

Just think if the Wright brothers were told that they had a choice between making a flying machine that would evolve into the B-29 which would carry the atomic bomb to Hiroshima and Nagasaki that would kill multitudes of people or to just continue being bicycle makers. Which one would you have chosen?

My take on the subject, work in whatever area you are interested in, or that which you have the most enthusiasm for. What the end user decides to use it for (whether as it was intended or not) is something that you have very little control over.

Brian

 

[MechEng13]

Well said Brian, A star for that.

We as Engineers have only so much control over how the end users utilize our products. And come on, how many of us take home something and end up looking at how else can we use it.

We are Engineers, it's in our nature. Curiousity may have killed that cat, but it sure opens up horizons to the engineer.



Alan M. Etzkorn
Product Engineer
Nixon Tool Co.

http://www.nixontool.com

 

[aspearin1]

I face a similar dilemma. I see products leaving my company, going to customers as process consumables. I look at these things and see high quality, highly recyclable virgin thermoplastic material going into the garbage heaps instead of recycling. I've suggested within my company that we develop some sort of deposit reimbursement for reclaiming some of these valued materials. Where's the money in that, though?

The fact is, though, that many of my companies products come in contact with harsh chemicals and each piece would need to be sanitized prior to any recycling effort. For now, it's not a viable business practice. If it were my business, I find a way to make it viable.

Part of the problem is, I believe, that waste recycling and disposal is the reposibility of the consumer and local municipality and is subject to all sorts of budget constraints. Why not transfer this liability to the manufacturer? Should not a manufacturer be responsible for the fate of their product from cradle to grave? This sort of policy would undoubtedly revolutionize the recycling industry and would likely become economically viable.
My 2-cents.

aspearin1

 

[MASSEY]

aspearin1

...no way! I couldn't disagree with you more.

IMO once a manufacturers sells their product they are not responsible to see that it is recycled properly.

Responsibility for recycling falls on the owner of the product at any given time. It's a package deal, you buy the container, you are responsible for the container.

 

[TheTick]

MASSEY
You should see what the laws are like in Germany. In order to sell a car, an automaker has to take responsibility for ultimate disposal of the car. I believe this also applies to a multitude of consumer products.

There are two types of people in the world: the kind that believe that people can be categorized into one of two groups and the kind that don't.

http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

 

[aspearin1]

Where will we be if everyone passes the buck down to the consumer? We will all be poor and living on piles of garbage. Taxes will soar, municipalities will suffer... and companies will continue to produce future garbage. There will come a time when the trash will be dumped on the lawn if its creator. That's my prediction.



aspearin1

 

[BJC]

Most of the basic technological advances in the last 100 years ( pick a number if a 100 years doesn’t work for you) have come from the death and destruction business.
Even the computer you are now using is a spin-off of someone wanting to kill someone else faster, cheaper and better.

 

[CajunCenturion]

That's absolutely true BJC. In fact, one of the first, if not the first, use of computers was to calculate ballistic trajectories during WWII.

I can sympathize with 3dKiwi's question, but bubb375's response sums it up perfectly. No matter what we do, what we invent, what we build, someone with an evil mind will figure out a way to exploit it.

In a quite similar vein, there is a great thread over in Tek-Tips,
thread717-711977 "Should computer technology be used to kill people?"
which you may find to be an interesting read.

 

[jstickley]

How far can you take this line of thinking though? Seriously, how far?

Example... I work for an electric utility (GASP!). The electricity we produce comes from power plants (coal, natural gas, etc.), which release certain gases which, based on whose research you read and believe, cause global warming, potentially displacing (or killing) millions from their soon to be flooded coastal homes (from melting polar icecaps). Oh, and the lines we transmit power over? They produce electromagnetic fields, which based on some circumstantial evidence MIGHT cause cancer in children who live and play just off the right of way. Oh, and here's another one... that electricity produced by my employer? Well, it could be used by a terrorist to power his computer so that he can coordinate an attack which could kill hundreds of innocents. Or this... it could be used by a weapons manufacturer, whose products end up killing tens of thousands throughout the world.

Makes you wonder how I sleep at night, huh?

My point? Pick your "ethical" cause... I'm sure that regardless of your industry, you can pick a line of reasoning, follow it far enough, and find a way in which your product violates that in which you believe.

 

[bubb375]

Two quick responses-

Aspearin1-

If the government transfers responsibility to the manufacturer, who do you think will pay for the cost? That's right - the consumer! Yes, your ultimate goal of environmental responsibility will be achieved, but the long term detriment to the economy by means of sucking the consumer dry may be devastating.

Jstickley-

My point exactly! You can take everything to the extreme. If you are going to sweat the small stuff, you should dig a hole and live in it (like a hermit).

One has to make a concerted effort to use their engineering knowledge for the purpose of perpetuating their ideals and ideas with as much responsibility as humanly possible. One cannot contemplate all of the unforseen implications because they are quite simply infinite.

Do that which you can, not what you would prefer but is absolutely unobtainable. You will sleep better at night.

Brian

 

[davidbeach]

bubb375,

Eventually the consumer pays anyway. One possible advantage to requiring the manufacturer to be responsible for the recycling is that the marketplace will reward the companies that are better able to control the costs of the recycling.

 

[3dKiwi]

A couple of replies,
Thanks for your 2 cents asperin1. IMO the change of focus to the manufacturer “owning” the complete life cycle of a product is coming, and about time too!
Bubb375,
I agree that the outcome of our endeavours can not always be predicted; here in New Zealand we have the perfect example in Ernest Rutherford, who, as the first to induce an artificial nuclear reaction, was awarded the Nobel peace prize. The irony continues considering N.Z.s nuclear policy today! However, to include recycling as an unforeseen after effect seems too short sighted, considering the rising costs of oil production.
Maybe 8 yrs in N.Z. has led to me becoming a hermit, or even a hobbit! But I believe “sweating the small stuff” is where the changes necessary will begin.
Cheers all,
DC

 

[melone]

Perhaps we should start taking personal responsibility for how we use products? Just a crazy notion, but ultimately, I am responsible for my own actions. Business has a responsibility to produce products that consumers want. Regardless of whether you want to believe this, it is true.

If people didn't want cigarettes, then the cigarette companies would quickly fold. However, it is not the responsibility of the cigarette manufacturers to pay for all of the lawsuits due to unintelligent end-users. At the end of the day, noone held a gun to the smokers head and made them light up!

 

[3dKiwi]

I was under the impression that the cigarette/lawsuit issue was about the manufacturer discovering the hazards of using their product, but not informing the customer. Surely they would be liable from then, until they issued a warning of the risks?
DC

 

[JAE]

I don't think that all this is just so cut and dry. Ethics can be very complex. For example, some of the posts above refer to the atomic bomb as some kind of great evil.

But you can, intelligently, make the case that more lives have been SAVED by Hiroshima and Nagasaki than have been taken. Not just in WWII but in subsequent stalemates through the decades after. When was the last time we had a world war?

I'm not belittling the lost lives there but you can make the case and its hard to refute. And please don't argue with me about the bomb - its just an illustration.

Thomas Sowell has used the example of welfare. Ethically, you initially would think that welfare is a good thing for poor people. The news media (quite the mental children they are) can easily place a poor woman with three kids on the nightly news and show how bad off she is. Then, with the welfare money coming in show they can show the immediate effect of its "goodness."

So ethically, its the right thing to do? What if there is the great, unseen effect of welfare where thousands of people are affected by the welfare laws such that the stimulus to find work is lessened and MORE people end up depending on it, modelling to their kids a lack of work ethic, creating a continuous family chain of dependence...you get the picture. You just can't SEE it so clearly but you can see the welfare mom all fixed up.

As an engineer working for a company, you simply should evaluate your position, your work, your companies product, etc. and use your best judgement as to what is right. You have the intelligence and you have the sense of right and wrong. Just don't over-react without really thinking through it all. Its complex....its life.

 

[melone]

I was under the impression that I was responsible for my own behavior. I admit, it would be nice to pass off any and all personal responsibility to the government / manufacturers, but I am just afraid that in the end we won't like the results.

 

[aspearin1]

The end results often are: biodegradable products, reuse of recycled materials, recycled materials costing less than raw materials, conservative usage on the manufacturing side, strategic planning (i.e. no over-production). My point was that policy will be the key to unlocking the technologies necessary to make all these things profitable. Without it there is no incentive to make the Green Engine run. Forgive my liberal point of view, but trash is very much a tangible, foreseen, and fundamentally reduceable consequence of production.

I as a consumer am responsible for segregating my recycling from organic trash. I, however, am powerless to the budgeted recycling program available in my county (other than 1 vote). Very few municipalities have a recycling program, and many will not recycle anything other than polyethylene milk bottles, glass, and aluminum cans, and newspaper. What about all the other scrap metal, recycleable plastics, newsprint, and junk mail that make it into landfill each day? Pits turn into mountains and then are shut down for lack of space, and better yet become quarantined from future usage because of the colored goo leaching from the soil.

aspearin1