Our friends at Inhabitat posted this ingenious list of eco-friendly ways to wrap presents and we had to pass it on. Called Future Present, they are the result of a challenge to fellow designers to find alternatives to the waste that is our usual Christmas wrapping.
Energy Bar Wrappers Collected at TerraCycle HQ.
We all know that packaging waste is a major issue. But what is the most feasible solution? Today there are fundamentally three choices for consumer packaged goods companies: non-recyclable, recyclable and biodegradable (reusable packaging, a la glass milk jugs are a fourth option that is quickly disappearing.) This question is incredibly important as we as a society try to find a balance between consumerism, capitalism and environmentalism.
Photo: Kelly Rossiter
There is something about sipping on a cocktail surrounded by friends that makes a party feel special. It doesn't matter what the time of year, whether you are getting into the holiday spirit, or sitting on a dock by a lake. Anybody can uncork some wine or crack open a beer, but serving a cocktail takes some thought and imagination. Choosing the perfect cocktail to serve is a great way to set the mood of the party.
Photo via unleashingmephotography
Reducing the number of colors used in printing packaging for a sliver of their products is going to save Unilever millions of dollars every year, and could save the industry as much as $5 billion annually if other companies follow suit.
Samples of Amazon.com's frustration-free packaging
Most people have had this experience:
Head to a store to get a flashdrive, micro flash card, or some other tiny gadget, and you’re handed a giant plastic case that contains it. You go home, wrestle the case open, likely cutting yourself in the process, and think to yourself, “Why on earth do they do they package this tiny thing in this massive plastic shell??”
photo: Nattu
The bane of over-packaging, especially with materials which are not biodegradable and renewable isn’t just something which is confined to wealthy nations. Though banana leaves have been traditionally used to wrap food, or to eat off of, in South Asia for millennia, as has happened elsewhere non-biodegradable synthetic materials have gained in popularity in the region without much though to the environmental consequences.
Image source: Quiksilver
A few ways to other ways to green your time-keeping: use your cell phone for a phone and a clock, don't wear a watch and just ask your friends for the time, make your own sun-dial. Or, if you just want a watch or enjoy accessories, Quicksilver, maker of surf products, now has a watch that is 86% recyclable. For the most part, taking your watch into be fixed is the most eco thing you can do with your watch, but if your watch gets run over and cannot be brought back from the dead, then its helpful to have a watch that can be deconstructed and recycled back into its individual parts.
We previously showed David Gardener's lamp made out of its own packaging; now we learn from Josh Spear about Chilean designer Rodrigo Alonso Scharamm. He uses thermoforming, the technology that makes the blister packaging that we cut our hands on and throw away, and uses it to make a lamp. Mix blister with light and you get Blightster....
O'burger, the first organic fast food joint in Los Angeles, where the burgers and everything else are all organic. What does that mean exactly? Well, "the buns, the sauce, the vegetables, meat, ketchup, mustard, fries and salad dressing" - it's all organic. Yum!
What about the burgers? Well the beef comes from grass-fed cows, the turkey burgers all come from free-range, grass fed turkeys and the veggie patties are vegan-friendly and made in-house from corn, oats and vegetables. According to O'burger, "if its edible, its organic."...
University of Brighton graduate David Gardener presented his Package Lamp at New Designers in London recently. This lamp is made of pulp packaging material, and is both the shipping box and the finished lamp....
Image Courtesy of Lionsgate
The third season of the laughter-laden series Weeds by Showtime®, about dealing wacky tabacky in the California suburbs is available on DVD. We were lucky enough to receive a copy for review and if you didn’t see it on the small screen when it first came out, now is the time to watch it. It’s packed with hilarious moments, lots of references to hybrid cars and an amazing cast which features Matthew Modine and Mary-Kate Olsen.
Charging for plastic bags at the supermarket works--people really do bring their own. Ten weeks ago Marks & Spencer instituted a 5 pence (10 cents) charge on plastic bags at its stores. Since then customers have used 70 million fewer bags. That's an 80% decrease in use. Who would have thought! These are among the first statistics showing the impact of banning bags and they are impressive. At the same time, the company has sold ten million of its own store-brand hessian green bags-for-life; donating the 1.85pence profit made on each one to Groundwork, an environmental charity--$400,000 so far.
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