How many times have you bit into a piece of fruit only to find that you’re also chomping on a sticker label? The small yet wasteful labels have long been the bane of waste-conscious fruit and vegetable eaters, but that might all change thanks to new technology that uses a low-energy carbon dioxide laser beam to etch information directly onto produce. No more peeling those annoying labels!
The Reclaim – Samsung and service partner Sprint’s newest green phone – has innovative features that go beyond the bare bones that similar products like Motorola’s W233 Renew phone offers. This eco-conscious smart-phone is 80 percent recyclable and made mostly of corn-based bio-plastics, but that’s not all this compact phone has up its green sleeves.
By now you have probably heard that recycled paper and soy inks contribute to greener graphic design, but it turns out that in the realm of sustainability, all fonts are not equal. In their work, “Measuring Type,” Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth seek to evaluate the ink efficiency of popular fonts. Using ball-point pens to write the word “sample” in the style of Times New Roman, Helvetica and others, Robinson and Wrigglesworth were able to deduce just how much ink each font uses. So what can an eco-minded graphic designer learn? Use light, serif-based Garamond instead of bold and compact Impact.
Welcome back to Inhabitat’s Green Wedding Guide! So far in this summer series we’ve covered eco-friendly jewelry, locations, invitations and now we’re bringing you our tips and suggestions for eco-friendly gift giving. Favors, gifts and registries are sometimes thought of as the bane of a green wedding. It can get overwhelming to plan details of sustainability into an eco-friendly wedding — let alone find meaningful gifts that aren’t a load of eco-guilt. Some fight the gift giving, but giving and receiving is fun, and there are many easy ways to make wedding gift exchanges more environmentally friendly.
Wondering how to turn all of those plastic bottle caps running rampant in your household into a green, planet saving endeavor? Well, lucky for you, and for marine life everywhere, Aveda has come up with an alternative solution for all of the un-recyclable rigid plastic caps that invade your medicine cabinets, refrigerators and kitchen drawers. The very same ubiquitous bottle-toppers pose a dangerous threat to oceans, birds and marine life when they are improperly disposed of and wind up in landfills or sent down storm drains. Aveda’s Caps Recycling Program will re-purpose these toxic plastics as a base for new packaging, in an effort to eliminate them from our oceans before it’s too late.
Only 14% of plastic water bottles are recycled, and Americans add 30 million PET water bottles to landfills every day! Aiming to provide an alternative to this alarming trend, Michigan-based Boxed Water Is Better is filling FSC-certified Tetra Pak boxes with Minnesota water and in doing so, giving us a new way to tote H20. But is boxed water truly the best option, or are there more ecologically-sound alternatives at hand?
Fast food packaging takes up a hefty chunk of our landfill space while effectively clear-cutting our forests. The golden arch proprietors dole out over 2 billion burgers a year, each individually wrapped in plastic coated paper and thrown into a paper bag with a few paper napkins–that’s about 75 per second, worldwide. Toss in a dozen other fast food conglomerates and we’re up to our ears in greasy garbage. What’s worse is that most of this paper makes its way into a trashcan after only about 5 minutes of use. Seeking to counter this consumptive cycle, University of the Arts grad student, Andrew Millar, designed biodegradable packaging for McDonald’s from grass paper, which has naturally grease-resistant properties.
A new West Elm store opened up in Manhattan last week, and the opening gala featured an incredible collection of one-of-a-kind cardboard furnishings crafted by acclaimed designer and event producer David Stark. Constructed from recycled West Elm packaging materials and catalogs, the objects were auctioned off in a silent auction with all the proceeds going to the Cooper Hewitt Museum, a museum devoted to historic and contemporary design.
Wondering what to do with all those old greeting cards and thank you notes? Now you can stick them in the ground and sprout wildflowers with Botanical Paperworks plantable greeting cards.. We’ve written about sprouting stamps and blooming business cards before, so …
Recently the Green Marketing Manifesto by John Grant was announced as the winner of the Environmental Award at the 2008 British Book Design and Production Awards. Designed and delivered by sustainable innovation practice More Associates, the hardback book reflects its content by reducing its embodied carbon and waste impact through its production methods.
Reducing waste by reusing beverage cartons, Swiss-born Tanja Burgdorfer’s “Recycled Magic Wallets” creatively makes use of what would normally be discarded. With a little bit of elastic and a few staples, Tanja turns old beverage cartons into contemporary and useful wallets for the environmentally-conscious consumer. Current selection in her etsy shop shows luscious fruit prints. Each wallet is entirely hand-crafted and is available ready-made or bespoke upon request.
From Future Present, by Jane Rosie
With Christmas just around the corner (a mere 4 days away!), it has probably crossed your mind that wrapping presents is not the eco-friendliest practice. That’s why we’d like to share a couple of ways you can eco-ify your wrapping technique this holiday season. The first is presented by London-based design recruitment agency, Represent, who shares with us twenty different tape-free ways to wrap your gifts, through their project Future Present.
When creativity, ecology and innovation collide, packaging becomes the product. This sleek wine box by Ciclus converts into a table lamp with no extra parts required. The packaging is made with wood from local, managed forests and recycled cardboard. Inside is a locally and ecologically produced bottle of Cava, Spanish sparkling wine.
The folks at Apple recently debuted their latest line of sleek notebooks, and we were excited to hear that they’re the greenest Macs ever! They’ve removed many of the harmful toxins found in computers including mercury, arsenic and PVC and made the remaining parts nearly all recyclable. The software has also been redesigned to run on 30% less power than previous models, earning them Energy Star certification. And finally, Apple cut out nearly half of the bulky packaging to streamline their distribution and create less trash to bring home.
A former North Carolina mailman was recently fined $3,000 and ordered to do 500 hours of community service for cutting out the junk mail. For over seven years, no one on Steven Padgett’s route received a single pizza flyer, ‘Current Resident’ catalog or sweepstakes entry – now that’s something to be thankful for. Unfortunately, this mailman couldn’t put an end to the production of junk mail, leaving much of it in his backyard or garage, but you can. 100 million trees are chopped, processed, glossed and stuffed into US mailboxes every year. Fight back with one of the many opt out services below!
Just in time for the overly packaged holiday season, we are thrilled to see that Amazon is debuting a new eco-friendly idea called ‘Frustration Free Packaging’. If you’ve ever tried to open a plastic package twice the size of the product inside and ended up with box cutters in one hand and carpal tunnel syndrome in the other you may know ‘wrap rage.’ Then once you finally got the plastic off, you still had 18 wires to unwind and a mountain of mostly unrecyclable trash. The folks at Amazon are working hard to remedy this problem with the introduction of Frustration-Free packaging. Amazon is working with manufacturers to eliminate dreadful clamshell packages for simpler brown boxes. Not only will it make wrapping and unwrapping much easier, but these boxes can broken down like any other and recycled.
Did you know that recycling a single ton of paper can save 7000 gallons of water, 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space and 4000 kilowatts of energy!? Statistics like these were key points at a sustainable print and paper workshop at the London Design Festival’s sustainability hub, Greengaged. The workshop, hosted by UK-based nonprofit enterprise Three Trees Don’t Make a Forest, set out to explore how different print processes affect the paper’s recyclability, and how you can reduce the impact through the design process.
This Monday morning the London Design Festival’s inaugural sustainability event Greengaged kicked off with a big-bang breakfast debut. The event’s pièce de résistance was Goldsmith University graduate Oliver Bishop-Young’s sustainability skip installation, complete with turf, steps, a hornbeam tree, signage from sustainable communication design agency thomas.matthews and [re]design’s WEmake bench. Located outside the Design Council offices in London’s Convent Garden, the skip introduced a breath of fresh air into the urban landscape while encouraging discussion about the importance of sustainable design.
Last month, more than sixty buses hit the streets of Cleveland encouraging “Green Patriotism” with banners and posters created by Pentagram designer Michael Bierut. Promoting both the ecologically sound use of public transportation and the development of green jobs in the manufacturing sector, the posters can now be seen on buses across the city. Beirut states that “The banners are part of a new environmentalism — one that sees action to address climate change as an imperative to protect both the American and world economies.”
Earlier this year Inhabitat’s Emily Pilloton highlighted the insightful video ‘The Secret Life of Cell Phones’ produced by environmental nonprofit INFORM, Inc. Now we are pleased to announce the launch of their latest video, The Secret Life of Paper. It explores the environmental impact of the paper production industry, focusing upon forest destruction, global warming, and the complexities of paper recycling.
Following the success of the 2007 ‘Love Your Earth’ Competition, Designboom.com, The Design Association Japan (DA) and TOBU department store have joined forces to launch ‘Green Earth’, a brand new international design competition. Calling all design professionals, students and enthusiasts, Green Earth is looking for graphic artwork that raises awareness of the environmental issues affecting the planet and provokes positive change.
This lightweight, portable cardboard table aims to assist on-the-go creative types like designers and students, who are often limited to work on low desks or floors. Made by Sruli Recht from flatpack cardboard pieces, this lightweight, sturdy design offers creatives an ergonomic plane on which to cut, fold, draft or design. Adding even more appeal to this smart and useful design, the table is biodegradable and can easily be folded up to pack into a portable carrier.
We love our design competitions here at Inhabitat, and today we are partnering with The New School Sustainable Design Review (SDR) in NYC, to help judge a student design competition for the much loved NY skincare company Kiehls. This year’s New School SDR design competition is being organized in partnership with Kiehl’s- the old-world apothecary founded in New York’s East Village neighborhood. In this post (below) you will see all of the competing sustainable designs of the 2008 student finalists, and want to hear YOUR feedback on which projects you find to be the most compelling and worthy of the competition’s grand prize award of $2,500!
We really want to hear your thoughts, so please comment, and VOTE HERE >
Designer Alain Bertreau creates simple furniture that cuts out excess materials and effort, leaves an overall serene and minimalistic impression, and packs light. We’ve covered Bertreau’s Instant Chair and his Modular Fence Chair but we only just glanced at his latest project, the Cover pouf, and it deserves a second look. Cover challenges our notion of package design by turning a cardboard box into the base of a waste-free pouf that is fun, functional and easily recyclable.
We’re guilty of overlooking good green graphic design sometimes on Inhabitat, but here’s a great example of visual communication as an effective tool for environmental and social change. London-based illustrator Jody Barton is just one example of the power of graphics as an education tool, producing a plethora of bold illustrations focused on environmental crises. Using hand-drawn typography, Barton’s illustrations evoke preconceived notions, stereotypes, and challenge beliefs around these issues, and make us stop to think about our environmental impact.
Check out this brilliant World Wildlife Fund ad campaign in the form of bathroom towel dispensers! Demonstrating that Saatchi and Saatchi is the undisputed king of transforming advertising into an art form, this genius PSA integrates a crucial environmental message into the built environment. Shown above is the latest example of clever marketing concept ingeniously integrated into the most banal space: a public restroom. These paper towel dispensers have a cut out the shape of South America through which a stack of green paper towels illustrates the green rain forest canopy of the continent. As the paper towel dispenser is slowly drained of its green paper towels, we see the greenness slowly drained out of South America, symbolizing the nasty environmental impact of disposable paper towels.
The art of furoshiki gift wrapping is a time-honored, ancient tradition, and Montreal-based Posch designs has put a new twist on this eco-friendly packaging concept with its latest reusable, silk fabric Biota Collection wraps. Rid yourself of the guilt of holiday gift wrapping excess and throw-away packaging by swaddling your gifts for loved ones in these gorgeous silk squares that can be used as a stylish alternative to paper wrapping. It’s gift giving with a conscience and a flair for luxury that lasts.
My Sust House is a Glaswegian approach to sustainable education, exposing kids and teenagers to issues of sustainability in design and planning through an accessible outlet: the Internet. This interactive game is narrated by two fetching Scottish cartoon characters and comes complete with an introduction on sustainability and two games dedicated to exploring “what sustainability means and how it relates to our homes.” As Sean Connery knows, even the most mundane things can be made appealing through the addition of a Scottish accent, and this charming interactive education website lives up to that rule. Even the most diehard non-greenies will be charmed by this cute interactive website.
Bringing graphic design back to its roots and creativity, Princeton Architectural Press launched D.I.Y. Kids in October 2007, a book by twin sister design-duo Ellen and Julia Lupton, founders of Design Your Life. Beautifully illustrated with “real artwork by real children”, D.I.Y. Kids engages young people to create from existing things, from binding their own books, sewing their own clothes, making stickers, logos, clothespin dolls, box buildings, graffiti furniture, ribbon accessories, and many more projects. What a fab way to get those creative juices flowing while recycling!!
If you’re looking for a way to spruce up your nursery and expand your knowledge of the animal kingdom, this Alphabet of the Endangered Species in the British Isles is indeed a “timely take on A-Z”. With punchy, clean graphics and playful, perfectly composed quadrants, this poster is sure to be a hit in any baby room.
Social Design Network Design21 announced their latest design competition this week; the challenge – to design the official logo for “Stories from the Field: The United Nations Documentary Film Festival”.
The Prize
$5000
DEADLINE
The deadline for this fabulous competition is November 26th – so get going!
For all you graphically-minded designers out there, here’s your chance to shine: DesignBoom recently announced its latest design competition, Love Your Earth, which asks graphic designers to create a graphic artwork to raise awareness on global issues affecting the planet. The deadline is September 8, 2007, three winners will be awarded cash prizes, and a shortlist of honorable mentions will be featured at 100% Design Tokyo this fall. Check out DesignBoom for all the details and put those graphic design caps on!
We just spotted this hilarious cartoon on greenwashing by Tom Fishburne. I think it speaks for itself on the humorous lengths that some brands will go to get on the eco bandwagon.
Leave it to the clever Dutch to brighten up your daily trip to the mailbox… with their blooming postage stamps, you can affix some living flora to that thank you note or birthday card! Dutch postal service TNT recently announced the production and sale of the seeded stamps, which were designed by Martin van Vreden, and hold the seeds of a variety of flowers, including petunias.
We’re always enamored with flat pack packaging for efficient transport and minimal waste, but here’s a light design that brings a bright idea to packaging by eliminating it all together. Lite2Go’s packaging doubles as the actual lamp shade so there is almost no waste, excluding the label and the instructions for assembly which are printed on recycled paper using environmentally friendly inks.
LOTS MORE GREAT GREEN DESIGN STORIES HERE... KEEP READING!
Greentea Design sells
exclusive Asian-inspired
contemporary
furniture, kitchen
cabinets and antique pieces from China, Korea and Japan.
Their furniture is crafted
from salvaged woods
that were reclaimed from
throughout Asia.
