I am using Ponoko to rapidly prototype them, can’t wait for them to arrive in a few weeks!

I hadn’t used Solidworks in a while… it felt good!

I think I will add a gray one too. I was thinking about adding a magenta/red-ish one, but I am still debating it.

What do you think?

One popular discussion is – What’s more green: An e-book or a paper book? On one hand, an e-book spares the use of paper and cutting down of trees. However, an electronic book must obviously be viewed on an electronic device, which utilizes electricity. Most sources of electricity today (not all) come from coal power plants. In addition to using the natural resources of trees, we should also consider that processing paper and physically manufacturing the book also consumes energy (probably electricity and coal).

So we have e-book (coal) vs. paper book (trees + coal). This is only comparing natural resource usage. What about these products’ individual effects over time? Every time an e-book is viewed, it is using coal. Every time a paper book is viewed, it is not killing more trees. I think its really important to look at the entire product life cycle before assessing its “sustainability”.

A paper book goes through a period of time where it consumes natural resources and energy, but then it lives the rest of its life as a harmless artifact/tool. An e-book does not require a lot of energy to produce, since it is digital, but requires energy to continually exist.

I am still not sure where I stand. What do you think? E-books or paper books?

“Our goal is to involve not only waste and industrial companies to the project but mainly gather society in the purpuse with local and national campains and educational program for puclic learning. We know that upcycling is not  revolutionary solution but by this way, involving the people in the main process and learn more about social, economical and industrial habits to go green without loosing money, wasting time or feel guilty about the enviroment.”

Upcycling is tricky. One one hand, prolonging the lifecycle of an otherwise trashed object is fantastic because it keeps volume out of landfills. On the other hand, if you upcycle an object to a product that is not robust enough to escape landfills for a significant amount of time — what is the point? Instead of upcycling, why not focus energies on creating products that cannot be thrown away?

So, I tend to think that on a large scale (like Terracycle’s partnership with Kellogg) upcycling is not effective, because Kellogg produces a massive amount of food packaging. Unless Terracycle is able to upcycle all of Kellogg’s food packaging waste into very valuable, robust products — there is just too much packaging! In that case, I think there is more opportunity to redesign food packaging than figure out an efficient plan for upcycling.

What Upcycle Belgium is doing is different — they are not just upcycling, they are trying to start a social movement. They want to education people about the lifecycle of products. From what I understand, they are not trying to mass manufacture new upcycled goods, but take an artisan approach and create new, unique products that last a lifetime.

I’ve always wanted to go to Belgium… who knows… I am going to Europe next month, maybe I should pay Brussels a visit!

It looks gorgeous!

Krystal,

Thank you for contacting us regarding ..

We appreciate your interest in our company and products.
Sincerely,

[Name]
Consumer Specialist
Consumer Affairs

–

“Regarding [dot.dot.dot]“  What does that even mean? This letter was half written. I am not even sure if I should write back, obviously no effort in these responses.

This e-mail is intended as a response to a mailed letter I received from (Name) at Consumer Affairs.

I was a bit confused by your response, because I was not inquiring or questioning Kellogg’s use of pre-consumer waste in my original letter. I was more interested in how Kellogg plans to make their packaging more sustainable. You said in your response that “materials we use are 100% waste, both pre- and post- consumer.”

If Kellogg knows its materials are 100% waste, do they plan on changing their packaging to be more environmentally friendly? 

Kellogg is not being proactive and redesigning their products by partnering with Terracycle. A partnership with Terracycle just temporarily displaces the waste (by turning used food bags into non-robust products like clipboards). Those clipboards made from packaging are going to break and end up in a landfill as well.

Thank you for your time,

Krystal

Oh Keebler,

I am very disappointed in your new green “marketing campaign” with Terracycle. It is a complete green washed mess. My roommate Crystal (yes, her name is also Crystal) came home tonight with a bag of Sandies Shortbread Dark Chocolate Almond cookies. The bag was already open, but there was no way to reseal it — and she didn’t want the cookies to go stale. So, she put the cookies in a tupperware, recycled the plastic tray that held them– but what could be done with the outside foil-lined plastic package? I pessemistically told her that it was unfortunately just trash.

“Wait! It says something here that it is green…” — Crystal gestured me over to read the package. I thought to myself, “Wow maybe Keebler stepped its green game up…”

The package reads ” News from the Hollow Tree! Keebler and TerraCycle have joined forces to collect and turn cookie wrappers into great eco-friendly products your family will love. Get involved and discover how this wrapper can be repurposed through upcycling — go to keebler.com to: (1) Help keep wrappers out of landfills  (2) Learn about a join a Cookie Wrapper Brigade  (3) Collect wrappers for a good cause.

Schemes like this really piss me off! Keebler is just putting up this green marketing scheme as a front so they can continue making the horribly unsustainable package that they always have. Instead of taking preventable actions — like redesigning their package to be biodegradable, recyclable, or useful past its life as a cookie package — they are just reassuring costumers that they will do something to reuse the packaging. They will just worry about it later.

You should check out the Keebler website. They encourage customers to mail in their bags and then Keebler will figure out something to do with it. Really? You expect customers to leave their home, go to the post office, and mail their bag to you? When their trash can is like 2 feet away? Yeah, sounds like you be receiving loads of bags.

Watch the Terracycle video also. I know it sounds all good and green, but I personally do not agree! These people are just elongating the lifecycle of trash — which is a temporary fix. You have to start rethinking what packaging is before you manufacture it.

Don’t expect people to change their behavior (and send in their trash) when companies like YOU refuse to change YOUR behavior.

Whew. Sorry that was a long, angry rant.

I found this recyclable laptop concept on Yanko Design today. It is a really interesting concept. It got me thinking about this idea of “disposable valuables”. What if the products we use every day and value a great deal were disposable? How would this change they we use them? How would it change their lifecycles?

It is the inspiration for my next studio project… stay tuned.

I have noticed that the majority of the trash that I have is coming from the bathroom. I am thankfully not talking about toilet paper or any type of waste connected with a toilet. Although I did some research on past alternatives to toilet paper and they are not pretty. The methods described in that article (leaves, stones, and mussel shells) are of course more environmentally friendly than toilet paper itself because toilet paper has to be manufactured from a natural resource (trees). However, I also did some research on how wastewater and septic systems work and the paper that is flushed down the toilet essentially dissolves.

On that note, my bathroom trash bag is full of other things like tissues and q-tips. I guess after four months only having one bag of tissues is not so bad. But how do we elimite the need for tissues? Go back in the day, when people used to use snot rag. The thought of it makes me cringe a little. But you can’t knock it until you try it so, from this day on, I will no longer use tissues. I am going to buy myself a snot rag.

More on tissues…Kimberly-Clark is cutting down ancient forests to create their tissue products. There has been a lot of controversy over what Kimberly-Clark is doing and GREENPEACE has acknowledged it and is trying to take action as well. Read up! The website also tells you what tissue brands in the US and Canada are “Ancient Forest Friendly”.

Yikes! My sound quality is getting worse. Sorry folks. It may be time to upgrade cameras.