Background-
We now live in a high-tech world in which we strive to improve our lives with technology, gadgets, and toys. Unfortuantely, the technology often changes so quickly that relatively new devices become obsolete and thrown away just a few years after their purchase. It is clear that designing devices with such short lifecycles is not an effective use of high quality materials and parts, particularly now as material prices are soaring.

Opportunity-
Rather than move away from high-technology in an effort to make industry sustainable, we saw an opportunity to design devices that use alternative power sources and can be optimized for upstream recycling. Your old devices get returned to the manufacturers where they get disassembled, melted down, and manufactured into other high-tech components.

Design-
The Lentec Powermate DC100 Zoom digital camera was designed with the amateur photographer in mind. Not only does the camera offer comfortable one-handed use, the flexibility of dual lenses, and a full-array of manual features, but it offers the option of a hand-cranked power source to charge the battery. Between the easy to dis-assemble design and the material choices of natural latex rubber, uncoated aluminum, and unpainted plastics, the camera has been optimized for up-stream recycling.