USO, RIUSO E PROGETTO di oggetti, componenti e materiali nei Paesi
Sviluppati e nei Paesi in Via di Sviluppo. Margherita Villa, edited by
FrancoAngeli, Milan 2000, 317 pages.

(USE, REUSE AND PROJECT OF ITEMS, components and materials in the developing countries
and in the developed countries)

This book was inspired by my research during long stays in African countries, where I worked as solar architect.

In poorer countries, one can find many examples of unconventional
use of ordinary, already used items. This is mainly due to the poverty level as well as the scarcity of stocks. People in need compensate their insufficiencies with creativity in the re-use of different containers or waste material. However, second and third-hand use is not always fully appropriate to its new function. Some examples also show poisoning or illnesses caused by incautious manipulation of dangerous products.
This is the situation in the developing countries.

The opposite situation is well known: in industrialised countries, the consumerist habits and the industry’s capacity offer plenty of choices concerning new products, which can easily substitute the old ones. Often, these new products are replaced before being broken, just because their owner likes the idea of being surrounded by a new design and fashion.
This behaviour generates huge quantities of garbage, creating enormous problems when the waste has to be managed and located.
On top of that, everyday objects contain – in their geometry or in their material – some qualities that are destroyed during the incineration and even during the recycling processes. While these qualities could be recovered for transforming the item in a new unit of trade and manufacture between developing and developed countries.
Some examples of this already exist, but they are just improvised, according to the circumstances of the country’s situation.
If the degradation of the goods and their assembling would be planned better at the start, the items could have a very long life and multiple functions. This can remedy the scarcity of components and articles in developing countries as well as reducing the waste from marketed items of first world countries.
Thus my book proposes giving greater possibilities for informal development to poor countries and the possibility for the richer countries of new partnership and collaboration.

The attached relevant pictures show clearly that.