On The Eco-Design Of Small Electrical Home Appliances

With the rapid development of society, Energy shortage and environmental pollution have become two very important issues which can not be ignored. How to seek a safe, healthy and sustainable development model based on saving resources and improving the living environment for human has become a common topic. In this paper, those issues above will be discussed through the eco-design of small home appliance product.Eco-design is the implementation and expression of sustainable development concept in design area, this article will introduce eco-design conception into the design of small electrical home appliances, by researching the feasibility principles and methods of small electrical home appliances design, aims at exploring new ideas for products innovative designs of small household electrical appliance industry to provide a new direction for its'development.This paper studied the eco-design of small electric appliances through basic concepts, principles and characteristics of the eco-design. First, development situation and trend of small home appliances will be analyzed and based on this ,the paper will analyze the necessity of the eco-design of small electric appliances, which consists of the harmonious development of human and nature, meeting consumers'need of pursuing high quality living environment and improving the independent innovation level of the industry. Second, the article focus on eco- design of small household electrical appliances from four aspects by combining theory and examples, which includes integrating product functions, containing the ecological semantic form of product, eco-efficiency materials and following the systematic design methods. Integrating product function is to optimize the product's function through combination, sharing and continuing of the product functions from the "best use" perspective in order to achieve a complex multi-use, best use, to save energy, resources and protect the environment. The eco-semantic pattern is using product semantics theory to put ecological elements into product form through the ways of instructions, symbols and other "code" approach to convey it to the user. And the user maybe "taking shape implies" to "decode" through imagination, semantic memory and other cognitive methods form. Therefore, the purpose of conveying ecological design concept by product form and raising public awareness of ecology will be reached. The material of ecological effects emphasizes the material environment, which means less energy and resources consumption, low environmental pollution, high recycling utilization, and that can enhance environmental sustainability. Following the systematic design method is to begin with the product life cycle to minimize the load on the environment.Eco-design focus on the harmony between human and nature, which aims at keeping the balance between both by optimizing people's own interests, and promote sustainable use of resources. In the long term, eco-design can help small household electrical appliances to reduce energy consumption, environmental pollution, and improve waste recovery and re-utilization, and also can enhance the competitiveness of their products. Therefore, promoting eco-design for small household electrical appliances is the need of the industry as well as inevitable trend.