Dematerialise! (take 2)

"Isn't it just reducing? Are you making up words... Agaaain?!" inquired Mr W.

"Nuh - Nuuuh" i responeded... "I was perhaps just being a little more poetic that informing... is it such a crime?" Mr W replies with a cheshire cat smile, a laugh & a nod in the affirmative.

So what does it mean to dematerialise & why isnt it reducing?


Well in a way it is reducing - it does involve using less - but not in the traditional sense. De materialising is about the evaporation of the very materials that produce particular objects/commodities & not about the reduction of the object itself.

Take for instance water heating. Having a hot shower usualy involves the use of electricity. Electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels (coal). If we have a shorter shower then we would have less demand for energy & less fossil fuel burning etc. This is a typical model for reducing. Using less means less impact on the environment... yay for us :)

So how is dematerialising different? Well there is a way we can have a hot shower that goes for the same time & that involves burning less coal. we can use a solar hot water heater. We may not be using less hot water - but the way the heat is produced involves alot less energy to produce and is more sustainable*.

Another example is online resources vs paper resources... Less material is used on the net, less production, but still the same product/object. Basically dematerialising is using less resources in making objects/commodities, while reducing applies to using less of the object itself.

Dematerialising usually requires/casues changes in the way the resource is produced & distributed in society. Solar pannels can atomise energy production, users produce energy locally & not in a mass/grid fashion. On the other hand the internet tends to network & proliferate information production, as oposed to a book which tends towards a static & isolated existance on a shelf. So energy is no longer as much a social crisis of concern, and information is not limited to discrete books in particular orders.

Ideally we should both reduce & dematerialise. But if dematerialising is done with a bit of thought it can lead to one really cool thing - sharing. you dont really get that with reducing. Laundry mats are all about "sharing" resources (well, for a cost). Think about the amount of time that your washing machine spends NOT being used... now if someone else were to use it instead of buying their own machine - we've just saved ourself the production of one more machine**

The question is -Is this reduction or dematerialisation. The argument for reduction would go: well we're making less machines so its reducing. The arguement for dematerialisation would say: the same amount washing is happening, nothing has been reduced, but the way in which the washing has changed to use less resources, so its dematerialising.

*Solar power can be probelmatic its not always as eco friendly as envisaged, the problem is there is not enough money being put into it tgo work out the bugs.

**Now if only there was a co-operatively run laundry around the corner, with low prices, eco-friendly washing powder & front loading machines that uses less water??