Glasses
Project Introduction
The product I chose to investigate is glasses. I know glasses are created from sand (I'm pretty sure) when it is heated, but I want to know how that happens and other things about glasses. Also I want to know how they shape the glass into different shapes and sizes for the glass frame.
Timeline
Raise and Extract
Silica Sand, Limestone, and Soda Ash are mined. Silica sand is found on Earth's surface in rocks such as granite and sandstone. Limestone is a sedimentary rock made of calcium carbonate. It is formed in algae, shells, and corals. It is found in shallow warm marine waters. Soda ash is made up of sodium carbonate.
Process
These minerals are melted together in a furnace at 1700 degrees Celsius to make glass. Air bubbles are released from molten glass. This is called Fining. Then the molten glass is formed into domes called lens blanks. Then the glass is cooled.
Manufacture
The curved lens blanks are produced. The curvatures on the front side determine if the lens are single-vision, bifocals, or trifocals. The lens blank is mounted into a lead alloy or wax carrier block and put into a lens lathe. Layers of material on the back of the lens are shaved off by the lathe in order for the lens to fit the right type of vision. The lens are rough when taken out of the lathe. The lens are smoothed with a polishing block called a lap. The lens are then put into a computerized lens edger, which trims them down to proper shape and size. Coatings are added for purposes like repelling water and resisting scratches.
Use
They are worn to improve vision for people with impaired vision.
Dispose and Reuse
Eyeglasses cannot be recycled, but they can be reused by donating them. You can take out the lens' and reuse the frame but get new lens'. Recycling the metal part of the glasses is easy but the glass and nose pad parts are very hard to recycle.
Sources
https://recyclenation.com/2015/04/how-to-recycle-glasses/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QprUOehMsUI
https://www.ima-europe.eu/about-industrial-minerals/applications/industrial-minerals-glass
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Eyeglass-Lens.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QprUOehMsUI
https://www.ima-europe.eu/about-industrial-minerals/applications/industrial-minerals-glass
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Eyeglass-Lens.html
Conclusion Questions
Product life cycle (PLC) is the cycle through which every product goes through from introduction to withdrawal or eventual demise. It is important for companies to research and determine a product’s potential lifecycle so they can see what materials they need, how it is processed, manufactured, and it’s disposal. If a company is recycle pro and they check the lifecycle of the product and it isn’t recyclable they probably won’t produce it. I wouldn’t change anything about my product because glasses work just as they should be which is making people’s vision better. If you changed anything about glasses it would be unnecessary because they already do what they are supposed to do. Yes I do think glasses will become obsolete or evolve. Nowadays a lot of people where contacts instead of glasses. Contacts are little things of plastic that you put in your eye to improve your vision. Also in the future there will be surgeries to make everyone’s vision better so people won’t need glasses. A trade-off is a situational decision that involves diminishing or losing one quality, quantity or property of a set or design in return for gains in other aspects. Yes I do think trade offs were made during the design phase of my product. One trade off is the fact that they used glass for the lens and plastic nose pads, this makes the glasses not recyclable. The designers probably knew this while designing it,but it was the only way to make them. It is important to recycle because we don’t want to pollute our Earth. There are 100 if thousands of landfills across America and if we don’t do anything about it our planet will be covered with trash, that is why it is important to recycle. Product designers play a role in recycling because they can design the product to make it recyclable or not recyclable. For example the product designers of the water bottle probably made it recyclable for a reason. Society plays a huge role in the recycling effort. If society doesn’t have a place to recycle then no one in the society would recycle. So it is really important that a society has a place to recycle. What I can do to help is recycling at my own house and not throwing trash in the ground and not polluting the Earth.