10-11-07, 9:07 am

Yesterday I bought this little plastic bright green water spray thingy that you use for various things like when you iron or for plants. It was only one Euro and in the cheap section in the supermarket. It never worked, I should have known better. I tried to fix it but it was unfixable. Eventually, exasperated but resigned, I took it down to the recycle bins with a lot of other plastic bottles. I could hardly take it back could I? What kind of person takes back something for one Euro? Anyway, I imagined inside the recycle bins it was full of these damn plastic sprays.


Plastic would be a good subject for this essay, because in most cases it is so unnecessary. It is a derivative of the oil industry and so wins over the opposition for packaging from paper because oil is the king and you can use paper to light fires and stuff and that, being free, is a not on. Yes, I know it helps prevent some wastage (good sealed packaging) but I am sure the same could be made true of paper, given the same degree of science applied to the problem. But this is not just about plastic, but plastic and design.

I have installed a few sinks, basins, and baths in my time so far on Earth and it is not a very pleasant experience, I have even plumbed in two different countries, Britain and France, with different plumbing requirements (no I’m not a plumber, but I like to get my hands dirty). I have found, to my consternation, that the mixer tap seems to have become a global species, and it has completely taken over (especially here in France, it seems) from the old fashioned pair of taps, one for hot and one for cold, and the basins only have one hole. In my particular DIY hypermarket there are a lot of basins to choose from, certainly, many different shapes and colors, as well as the more standard white ones. But all of them demand that you use a mixer tap. They also have this complicated contraption that opens the plug and provides for the overflow. This contraption is usually mostly made of plastic with some metal. The plastic plug pops up (in theory) under the water to let it out if you pull or push some rod or other usually just behind the mixer tap. Gone is the old plug on a chain. The mixer taps accept two incoming sources of water supply, hot and cold, and so have to have some kind of internal mechanism, usually controlled by a swiveling handle or similar, that allows you to mix the temperature of the water inside the tap before it comes out, so in theory you can get a stream of water at the right temperature and presumably keep it running. (I feel a little queasy at the thought of lukewarm water lurking inside these taps, it seems ideal for bacteria, but maybe that’s just paranoia.)

What used to be the old method for, say, shaving, was that you first filled the bowl with some hot water then topped it with cold until the desired temperature was achieved. And maybe you made a few adjustments later. Now, though, you can fill it up all at once with the correct temperature. In theory, that is. But it never seems to work like that for me. I notice I always end up using the tap as if it were a traditional two tap system, because it is too difficult to keep playing around with the temperature as it pours out. It also seems to be encouraging me to just run the water on and on when I have got the right temperature rather than fill the bowl up, because when I stop and start again I have to find the right temperature all over again. This doesn’t seem to me very good for conserving water. Apart from this, the damn plug contraption always either breaks or never works properly from the start, because the plastic, which it is inevitably made of, is either brittle, too lightweight, or it never works properly in conjunction with the metal parts. Plastic here seems to be replacing parts that were not previously plastic, and with a more complicated mechanics. I nearly always end up buying a plug for the sink anyway. This is (even more) annoying because the sinks never have any attachment point for a chain, so the plug has to sit at the bottom and sometimes of course you end up catching it with your hand and letting all the water out and have to start all over again. Another problem is the position of the mixer tap in the middle of the basin ledge, if I bend to splash my face (every morning!) my nose hits the tap, it is resolutely IN THE WAY.

An irritating feature of one particular mechanism like this, that I know only too well, is that it always wants to remain plugged. It is old and durable and made entirely with metal but it always drops shut with a really irritating heavy clunk, so that you can’t ever just run some water, say, if you want to quickly brush your teeth. This is good for preserving water but not your sanity (it does not have a mixer tap, thank goodness). I also know, intimately, of a bath mechanism like this, with a mixer tap assembly, that opens so minimally it takes about a million years to empty. If you fix this type of bath mechanism what happens is that usually the plug pops up so much that the plug hole can never be properly sealed again, so you can never have a bath bigger than about an inch and you have to keep the water running, and always at the wrong temperature because of the mixer tap.

The other aspect of the mixer tap that is hard to avoid noticing (or maybe I have a dirty mind) is that they are phalluses. The row of taps on display in my store looks like some sort of diabolical robot sex shop.

What is it, I wonder, about this design that the corporate capitalists love so much? Or is it us consumers? Do we just prefer to buy mixer taps? Are they just fashionable? Please don’t say that! Is this all just a result of market forces? Does the market really tend to end up with the most stupid solution? One naturally tends to assume that modern design is the cutting edge, and that today’s stuff is better at doing its job than in the past. So am I wrong about the mixer tap?

Maybe, but consider this: I read somewhere about the prehistoric bow and arrow used for hunting. According to the experts, including archaeologists, technicians, and archers who actually use the things, the prehistoric bow has only recently been bettered in performance terms by a modern carbon fiber bow (but even this, I would imagine, is probably less easy to repair without the aid of a specialist machine shop, so would not be 'better' for the prehistoric person). In all the intervening years people usually just assumed that theirs was an invention improving on what had gone before. But it was not, even the famous English longbow.

In a recent test carried out reconstructing the 'iceman' Otzi’s 3300 BC prehistoric footwear (his body was, you may recall, found preserved in an alpine glacier (he is variously called Frozen Fritz, and Similaun Man) and used by a hiking expert, the expert described them as better than the modern equivalent. They were made of a kind of rope netting, dried grasses, and furs. You can see them on display, along with his body, in a nice little museum in Bozen/Bolzano, Italy (incidentally, I met a technician who worked at the museum and he very disrespectfully but amusingly referred to him as the 'Speck,' which is the preserved raw pork that they like in the Tyrol, and which is very nice). Otzi’s clothing is amazing and I am sure would be ideal for the conditions he faced. They are constructed with a great deal of care, artistry, and attention to detail, and obviously were made to fit him. His bow was a beautiful sculptural object in its own right. I found, though, the cartoon-like drawings depicting Otzi a little disrespectful, to me he looked a bit like a drunken 'caveman' and it was difficult to associate the refined skill and artistry that was obviously needed to make all his stuff with this figure.

I became interested in this ‘survival gear’ aspect of design. I soon read, on the BBC website, an article entitled 'Replica clothes pass Everest test; George Mallory was as well dressed to climb Everest in 1924 as some of today's climbers, research reveals.' The study was meant to test (with two climbers, one wearing modern stuff) whether the famous olden day climbers might have died because of poor gear. The title of the article in fact understates the findings: that the clothes actually performed better than today’s equivalent. This old climbing gear was made from gabardine, wool, cotton and silk. The outer layer of gabardine was hardwearing and water-resistant, yet breathable, and the clothing was also lighter than modern equivalents, in fact the lightest ever to be used on Everest. Typical modern climbing gear, you will be interested to know, is made from synthetic materials, from polypropylene for the underclothes and acrylic for the outer fleeces, which are bought pre-sized and off the shelf and which therefore never quite fit properly. Plastic lurks here too.

What seems to have contributed to this victory of the old over the new (if it is not romanticism winning over the hearts of the testers) was the fact that the gear was bespoke; that is, made for the wearer as an individual, rather than bought off the peg. The arms of the tailored suit jacket did not 'ride up' as the wearer stretched, while the modern jacket did. This was also true at the waist. Revealing a part of the flesh in these areas was not a good thing up a mountain. But this could not have been the only factor, because, as I said, the clothing and footwear was also lighter, 20% and 40% lighter respectively. Modern glacier boots are made with a casing of plastic, rather than leather.

Modern design is often heralded because of its apparently non individualized cheap and available 'democratic' or universal qualities. Plastic seems 'democratic' in this way because from one basic material can be moulded (literally) many forms fulfilling a multitude of functions. It will be useful to briefly look at how plastic is made.

The term 'plastics' encompasses organic materials, such as the elements carbon (C), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), chlorine (Cl) and sulfur (S), which have properties similar to those naturally grown in organic materials such as wood, horn and rosin. Organic materials are based on polymers, which are made by the conversion of natural products or by synthesis from primary chemicals coming from oil, natural gas or coal. The manufacturing starts by heating the hydrocarbons in a 'cracking process.' Here, in the presence of a catalyst, larger molecules are broken down into smaller ones such as ethylene (ethene) C2H4, propylene (propene) C3H6, and butene C4H8 and other hydrocarbons. The yield of ethylene is controlled by the cracking temperature and is more than 30% at 850°C and such products as styrene and vinylchloride can be produced in subsequent reactions. These are then the preliminary materials for several other types of plastics. This process results in the conversion of the natural gas or crude oil components into 'monomers' such as ethylene, propylene, butene and styrene: these 'monomers' are then chemically bonded into chains called polymers. Different combinations of monomers yield resins with different properties; each monomer yields a resin with different characteristics, and combinations of monomers produce copolymers with further property variations. The resulting resins may be molded or formed to create several different kinds of plastic products suited to many markets.

The variability of resin permits a compound to be tailored to a specific design or performance requirement. For instance, impact strength measures the capacity of a material to take shock; heat resistance protects from extreme temperatures; chemical resistance from environmental chemicals.

Being universally available, reproduced on a massive scale, inexpensive and off-the-peg, plastic is associated with democracy.

But is there a genuine connection between this kind of design and the political form, I mean a connection other than by this allusion/metaphor? And is, by the same token, bespoke design automatically anti-democratic: elitist, or only for the elite?

Let us put aside the fact that once a massive industry has won out above the competition it may, at least relatively, control prices and therefore 'inexpensive' mass products may be less likely (or not really cheap). We shall assume mass production can and does produce items cheaper (for the same use) than bespoke. Clearly, to buy, say, a man’s suit off-the-peg is a lot cheaper than having one made in Saville Row. It is, as Samuel Butler said, easier to buy a pint of milk than get a cow.

But, this is probably only true if we do not take time into account. A tailor-made item is likely to last much longer. Indeed, in the long run custom-made items seem likely to be cheaper for the user than their off-the-peg counterparts, because of the quality and fitness-for-purpose of the goods and so the relatively fewer costs for total replacement, for replacement of parts, or for repairs. In the long run the person who can only afford to buy the cheaper off-the-peg goods ends up paying more for an equivalent item than the person who can afford higher quality bespoke goods.

So, if we take time into account, so-called 'democratic' design is not so wonderful. In fact it seems to be the source of a lot of social injustice, where the poor end up paying more for their necessities. This reflects something that is well known in the political sphere: that democracy is a great leveler, but in leveling everyone it inevitably treats unequals as equals, and so in the end unfairly. Marx once defined a superior form of social justice as 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,' but it has always been difficult to see how this could be reconciled with democracy, at least as it stands. Democracy is too crude an instrument, currently, to allow such fine tuning of abilities to needs.

But, leaving this problem aside, if we carry the same, Marxian principle over into design, what could it mean?

It could mean a form of bespoke design, but with the added benefits of modern mass production methods. It would probably mean a kind of hybrid design method. Such design exists today where there are offshoots of big industries. For instance, mass car producers often own and run smaller luxury car manufacturers who run racing teams and whose developments feed back into the big corporation. They are run on a quasi-autonomous basis and therefore are free to be more specialized. It is possible to imagine a future where all big industry diversifies in this way so that essentially there is no longer a ‘mass product’ but only bespoke products fitted to specific niches. At the moment such endeavors are usually restricted to making products for the very rich and for other markets that make money (sport, entertainment).

It is often argued today that the 'feedback' loop means that innovations in, say, the luxury car design market, for instance, end up benefiting the ordinary consumer anyway, and that ‘niche marketing’ already exists given the number of options the consumer has for any particular basic car. But I do not think this is, even usually, a benefit for the consumer. In fact I think it often proves to be the reverse, to be a whole series of new disadvantages. For example, the average car today is apparently much safer with all of its electronic devices, but it is also much harder to repair and you can no longer be a 'shade tree mechanic,' you are at the mercy of (usually unregulated) garages. And cars go faster, which means you need the greater safety because accidents are worse. It always struck me as funny how in London taxpayers were effectively paying to maintain roads and then to put bumps in them deliberately to slow down traffic, in other words they were paying to make roads both drivable and then less drivable. It would have been cheaper not to maintain these roads.

Otzi’s bow will, I think, never be bettered in terms of design for what it did, for its fitness for purpose during the time it was needed. But today’s designs seem to be always capable of improvement in any number of ways; except perhaps the mixer tap.

--Gary Tedman is a contributing writer to Political Affairs who lives in the UK.