What is it?

The Samsara Project will invent and build a revolutionary system of manufacturing consumer products.

The basis of the Samsara Project is to foster the innovative use of readily available raw material inputs in new decentralised manufacturing processes, using revolutionary designed products, to make all forms of consumer items using the same materials to rebuild infinitely. The ultimate circular economy. Rebuild
and Rebirth. (“Samsara”). Samsara Project approach is about reducing the waste and loss of materials and the embodied energy within them. The concept is relatively simple. There is no end of life for materials. It is a design and manufacturing system that reduces waste of materials and preserves the embodied energy accumulated by them. It is firstly achieved by designing consumer commodities in a way that enable the ongoing deconstruct-reconstruct reincarnation of material into new consumer products within the location they presently exist. Call it Cradle to cradle, up cycle, recycle, but in really “product new life” rather than the present “product end of life”. Think Lego, it is a design system of different forms of building blocks made to fit each other. Using Lego, one can make a car, then a plane, a house and so on using the same base materials.

The above will be hard to achieve if products are constructed out of a mix of materials non-complementary that inhibit or prevent the deconstruction and re-birth of those refined materials into a new product. Nevertheless, the concept is achievable, and especially if you consider we are on the verge
of achieving huge leaps in the use of AI, quantum computing, robotics, material and building technology. As a whole if we solve the waste issue (energy and materials) by technical engineering and design and enable regional re-manufacturing by having deconstruction methodology and a re-construction design and 3D printing type applicator the ripple effect our use of water, energy, materials that will impact positively on our climate, social equity, financial and political stability.

Why?

It is imperative we discover, invent and develop humanity’s transformative “next steps” in achieving self- sufficiency with the least possible negative impact to the environment. We must enable our species to survive and flourish in the face of increasing population, expected living standards, pollution, and growing scarcity of raw materials. This can’t be achieved unless we overhaul our unsustainable manufacturing, consumption and disposal system. The Samsara project will enable this change along the entire supply chain.

Humanity needs to undertake change for the betterment of itself and the environment we live in and depend on. It is arrogant to believe we can continue to find and create infinite material resources and toss them into landfills or send them up in smoke forever.

Further, the existing consumption rate is not compatible with the rapid convergence of:

• increasing consumers’ expectations,ncreasing disposable income and population,
• a limit to our traditional material resources and increasing costs,
• future technology and the effect on employment and income,
• untenable economic realities in a time of political landscape transformation and an
  unstable global environment.

The projected dramatic increase in disposable income in the Developing countries, (roughly 3.5 Billion people), over the next 2 decades will potentially mean a doubling of material inputs for the production of consumer goods. If construction and disposal techniques of consumer goods are not improved, the
increase in commodities will also mean a significantly increase amount of waste. An additional aspect of the demand increase is the looming potential of a material supply drought. This would effectively deny those commodities to large sectors of the population and consequently destabilise both politically and
economically. The only real answer is reduced waste by using the same material endlessly.

There is an end to that game. The stakes are nothing less than testing the fragile stability of economies and governance in the very near future. Technology can destroy us. Technology can rescue us. We can decide which way to define and guide the fruits of creativity.

The Goal?

We intend on developing a specific re-use design parameter where material feedstock inputs to make consumer products can be individually extracted and re-used in the next application. The input materials will have the specific capability for perpetual recycling and reuse with minimal deterioration of the original material base. The technology will be capable of de-constructing the materials and re-constructing them again in an individually desired form or design.

How?

• To develop these materials, technologies and processes through intensive R&D,
• To invent mechanical and supply chain systems whereby an individual consumer can more efficiently manufacture object/s to a design using readily available materials. (design capabilities, accelerated 3D printing type systems).
• To identify existing and develop new technologies that may not ordinarily be associated with this concept but can readily and seamlessly convert into a new revolutionary end to end chain, (molecular markers, precise atomic engineering technologies)
• To align the materials and technologies with a new lineal manufacturing and marketing chain, (high speed material sorting logistic technologies)

How?

• To develop these materials, technologies and processes through intensive R&D,
• To invent mechanical and supply chain systems whereby an individual consumer can more efficiently manufacture object/s to a design using readily available materials. (design capabilities, accelerated 3D printing type systems).
• To identify existing and develop new technologies that may not ordinarily be associated with this concept but can readily and seamlessly convert into a new revolutionary end to end chain, (molecular markers, precise atomic engineering technologies)
• To align the materials and technologies with a new lineal manufacturing and marketing chain, (high speed material sorting logistic technologies)

Think, Quantum Computers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) meets Chemurgy and Biochemistry using micro-robotic like 3D printers in a ‘do it yourself’ industry or even home-based manufacturing system using block chain type financing.

It is time we moved on to the next era of our evolution and civilisation, away from the business concept and commerce of “built in obsolescence” that is hides behind easy finance loans and the seduction of excess materialism. It is at the end of its game. Humanity has no excuse. We have the tools and intelligence to achieve less waste.

The initial goal is that in the early Samsara era of implementation the developed technology will be capable of making most of the bulk items we use in our daily lives: clothes, shoes, tables, plates and cups, chairs, building materials even some machines. Ideally this could be done regionally or at home
using commodity material one has at hand, or a new source of sustainable organic matter. This will therefore reduce the movement of everyday items resulting in a higher level of human decentralisation.

Yes, many retail stores will suffer but that is already happening with online sales like Amazon. The traditional factories won’t be needed as much, and the global labour market will also change, as it did in the industrial revolution. It is our belief that the textile industry is the best place to start the movement to a more sustainable world. However, this can only be achieved if we start with materials that are complementary with each other and delivered initially with a purposeful construct-deconstruct-reconstruct design paradigm.

Imagine, you arrive home and throw your soiled cloths into a wash basket… except it is now a ‘digestor’. You move to your touch screen and scroll through the type of clothes you want to wear tomorrow. At a touch you can choose the colour and style; it has your shape already programmed in. Press GO. In the morning you wake up and there it is in your wardrobe, made from the materials of yesterday. To some extent this technology in its basic form already exists in a proto-type form, examples will be revealed later.

Instead of the average waste of textiles of 23kg per person per year, going into landfill, (average in the US of 350 million people), you may use only 23kg of material in your lifetime. Imagine the savings in energy, pollution, transport and better application of water alone!

Textiles are just the beginning!

Forward

The path forward can only work if it feeds off the capitalist nature and the political need for popularity. However, before the capitalist nature for expansion of the technology takes over the initial R&D will need to be funded by not-for-profit organisations such as WRI.

It will work if it:

• receives the institutional buy-in of legislative bodies globally
• delivers to the consumer better, cheaper products, easier, that require a fraction of the energy of other systems,
• is available to everyone everywhere, and
• is both sustainable and environmentally sound.

Unique opportunities and Concept

To take the path of fixing the cause of the problem rather than symptoms. The greatest opportunities lie in correcting the course of our “make it sell it scrap it” consumptive culture towards a future where every molecule used in consumer goods are valued, cradle to grave and back to the cradle again.

If one can fix the cause of the problem, the opportunity is the greatest. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. Technologies and systems that address this effectively will not only achieve a rapid take up but moreover lay the pathway for a long and continued future by existing in a better tomorrow.

This Project seeks to promote the concept that all our commodities are indeed every bit as valuable as a precious metal, which can be reused and reformed indefinitely without losing value. This includes the embodied energy used to make a commodity, to ship it, to package it and so on. Every molecule of
every material we use has a cost, a cost in terms of embodied energy to create it and ship it, the life force in it and natural evolution that created it.

The technical heart of the Samsara Project is to develop the most efficient Codes for the transformation from one physical form or design application to another, differently to any process before. Lets call this “atomically precise engineering” or APE. Such a process would embody value in the materials
indefinitely, which could be logically argued that, because it will be cheaper than sourcing new materials. Indeed, the best example of what the Samsara Project is about is not Lego but “nature” itself. The ongoing use of all materials and energy perpetually as happens in the organic life cycle.

Timing

It is estimated that global disposable income will double within the next 20 years. Logically, we will need to produce double the amount products consumers buy today. The consequence of this is that material feed stocks will also need to double to meet demand. It is simply not possible to double traditional material inputs like timber, oil, cotton, minerals and so forth at the pace of rapidly increasing demand. For example, trees for timber take 10-15 years to grow, to double that supply one would need to plant double the present forestry today, or harvest virgin forests, which is highly unlikely.

It would also mean doubling the use of transport, energy, water and land which are already under strain with the existing demand. Further present resources, industrial systems and available finance will be outpaced by consumers’ needs, which if not met, will create a divided world of historically unrivalled disruption, rationing of goods and possibly anarchy.

It is important we start now. Like the proverbial frog in the pot of water on the stove, we think we can sit, not just surviving but living comfortably, but we cannot. It is essential we, the freethinking, pro-active business and investment community, take control.

While many would agree on how we see present environmental and social issues facing humanity, we may not all agree on the solution. The traditional UN type process of getting everyone to agree to anything that affects the entire planet, mankind and the environment is very, very slow. The key to the Samsara project being successful is its appeal to the capitalist norms, but with a big difference to past revolutions. This difference is that the technology itself will make it feasible for everyone to take it up and then become perpetual within itself, at home, within a region, decentralised globally. What needs to be developed is a revolutionary rethink of manufacturing and consumption today.

Examples of similar industrial revolutions/evolutions.

The Samsara project is a massive revolutionary change in manufacturing, but there are similar precedents. The discovery and use of electricity for example. Can you imagine life before it was introduced? People of that time had little to no idea of what it was or what electricity could do? Can you imagine your life without it? Everything we presently do, use, live by and benefit from involves the use of electricity. It had to start somewhere…a whole new supply and value chain had to be developed. This value chain was made up of new entities, starting from the ground up. Edison’s light bulb was useless without Nicholas Tesla’s generator and the technology to make it safe and harness it. A whole new value chain including the power poles to the switches and electrical outlets had to be developed.

Some may say the Samsara Concept is pure fantasy but so was Dick Tracy’s watch phone and I am sure there are many other similar examples where, when science is applied to a need, a desperate need at that, if the concept fits the purpose, it can be done.

Our proposed new evolution of industry is not dissimilar to the way electricity came into being. However, the before and after are strikingly different.

Result

The Samsara Initiative intends to finance and create a new manufacturing consumption/rebirth paradigm to support the ever-growing human need for survival, health, wealth and prosperity within the bounds of a stable environment and economic political structure throughout the world.

We should do well by doing good, as the old saying goes.

In Summing up

Some may say that it is only because we make things redundant, make them into waste, the world economy stays in business.

We say it is an outdated foolish economic system and as the masters of this planet we should do much better.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this document is not purporting a plan. It is simply a concept looking to garner support from other NFP organisations and prospective PE interest.

In the words of JFK “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future”.

© Phil Warner
Revision 16th December 2021
8 Thynne Court, Maleny, 4552 Australia