From ReUse to ReGlow

In the vein of inventive reuse, industrial designer Shelley Spicuzza has created a versatile and attractive globe lamp called ReGlow, with the aid of used PET bottles.  The lamp is configurable as a hanging pendant, desk or table lamp, as well as a dramatic floor-to-ceiling lamp, with multiple units fixed along a tall aluminum pole.  What makes ReGlow interesting is it’s simple central element, made from a two-part clear plastic sphere with holes arrayed around it, which allow the user to secure the bottles by placing their necks through the holes and then screwing their caps back on inside the sphere.  With its ease-of-access, the sphere allows one to replace  bulbs as well as even the bottles themselves, in order to achieve an array of color schemes depending on the color of the bottles at hand.  Straightforward in design, this lamp helps us imagine the potential reuses of the standard PET bottle, an unfortunately under-recycled product.

Ecolect’s Materials Petting Zoo at IDSA Rhode Island’s Nextup Conference!

On Thursday September 25th, designers, business owners and individuals gathered together for ISDA Rhode Island’s Sustainability Conference in Providence. Presentations were given by four speakers; Meaghan O’Neal of TreeHugger.com, Sean Brennan & Kelly Sherman of Continuum, and Emily Pilloton of Project H Design spoke on the importance of understanding consumer behavior and choices. Emily discussed her current ongoing project, Hippo Roller, a water transportation device. Meaghan educated us about a new form of eco-friendly graffiti, and Sean and Kelly spoke passionately about the importance of the consumer mindset and understanding how consumers think about the environment. Most importantly, all of the guest speakers discussed ways of designing to guide consumers in choosing greener options. Afterwards, guests and speakers took part in an engaging discussion of causes, relevant issues, and solutions. Everyone congregated on the green roof of the historic and sustainably redeveloped, Peerless Lofts Building for cocktails and a small version of Ecolect’s Materials Petting Zoo, the cutting-edge traveling exhibition of environmentally considered materials.

Project H
Tree Hugger
Continuum

How ECO2 Plastics Turns Our Idea of “Washing” on its Head

Although recycling plastics contributes a great deal to the effort to reduce waste and dependence on landfilling, and must become standard practice by society in general (we’re not there yet), the process does have one big downside, and that is water use.  What many people may not realize is that the recycling of plastic requires vast amounts of water for cleaning and other processes, amounting to billions of gallons every year.  With this challenge in mind, not to mention the increasingly strict water use policies in place in the State of California, Gary De Laurentiis, a world-renowned plastics recycling industry expert, founded ECO2 Plastics, and in turn, began to utilize an industry-changing process.

Referring to the process as “eco.logical.recycling”, the San Francisco-based company, along with Honeywell, has developed a method by which to clean plastic PET bottles using an FDA-approved biosolvent at a stage when typical plants use a great deal of water.  The solvent is then distilled to remove sugars and glues, and sequestered for ongoing reuse, at the same time that carbon vapors captured from power plants (an additional benefit of the process) are then converted into liquid CO2 form, which serves as the “bath” in the final stages of the process.  Once the FDA approves the resulting recycled plastic as food safe, the company will then be able to offer it for reuse in beverage containers.  Although ECO2 currently only utilizes PET, which is the most consumes plastic in the U.S. by volume, the company may soon work with HDPE bottles as well as ASR (auto shredder residue) from the auto industry, which will help reduce waste even further.  According to CEO Rod Rougelot, ECO2’s Riverbank, California plant will be joined by another plant to go online within a year, and the company hopes to introduce its waterless process to countries such as India and others, which have water crises even more dire than those in California.

ECO2 Plastics

Futurethink Brings Us The Future of Green Business Strategy

(image courtesy of futurethink.com)

In their August 2008 futurist report entitled The Future of Green Business Strategy, online innovation and research consulting firm futurethink, offers a detailed 37-page exploration of the four main trends “shaping the Green marketplace”.  With the report, the firm attempts to show how principles of sustainability will be very influential in regard to how companies seek to innovate and grow, emphasizing that they must move beyond just carbon offsets and green marketing, and establish true transparency, in order to garner long-term consumer loyalty.  Clearly, futurethink appears to recognize the broader significance of environmental peril, stating that “Green is quickly evolving into a force that’s far bigger than a mere trend.  Green is about health, wellness, sustainability, and balance.”, but the determining factor will be how this firm and others like it, are able to translate this understanding to a Triple Bottom Line approach among its clients.  Just as Michael Braungart has stated that designers have a special responsibility to design products that do not harm the environment, green consulting firms with integrated TBL strategies, have a similar responsibility to positively influence the corporations for whom they consult.  As it is their expertise that is being sought, they must be prepared to push for the progressive change that is required.

futurethink

The Future of Green Business Strategy

The Eco-Friendly Keg Party!

The infamous disposable plastic cup that has been a mainstay of college campuses around the country has finally received a much needed overhaul. The Solo Cup Company has just announced a launch of their first ever use of recycled content in a disposable cup for wide spread sale.

Solo’s Bare™ line of disposable plastic cups is made from 20 percent post-consumer recycled polyethylene (PET) plastic. According to Steve Jungmann, Solo Cup Company senior vice president of consumer sales and marketing, “Sustainability is an ongoing priority for Solo and for our consumers. Our Bare products deliver environmental benefits with all the performance, strength and style consumers expect. We are committed to providing alternative choices in convenience tableware while reducing our own footprint on the world’s environment.”

The Release of Solo’s Bare™ line of sustainable products is a step in the right direction for the disposable tableware industry. Not only are these cups made from recycled plastic, but they themselves can be recycled anywhere plastic bottles are accepted.

Although there is still a lot more that can be done in this industry, Solo has provided the weekend picknicker, or partygoer with more sustainable alternatives than ever before. Cheers to that!

www.barebysolo.com

Paper from Elephant Dung?

That’s right.  Elephant dung.  From journals and notebooks to personal stationary, The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company has created a line of products made from elephant waste.  Many of us are probably familiar with TerraCycle’s worm waste-based fertilizer, but these products give whole new meaning to the term reuse and sustainability!   The paper is made by drying the dung, and then thoroughly rinsing it until the fibers from the vegetation the elephants consumed, are the only element remaining, which are in turn, eventually transformed into the actual paper fibers.  As a further indication of their commitment to sustainability, a portion of the sale of their “Products with a Purpose” is put towards supporting the welfare and conservation of elephant habitat around the world.

The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company

Would You Ever Sit on a Sony Playstation?

Pli Design Ltd, a sustainable furniture firm based in London, U.K., has come up with a practical solution to the increasingly common question of what to do with plastics from discarded consumer products.  With the Reee Chair, comes the first chair back and seat made entirely of recycled plastic from a single source - nine old SONY PlayStation®2 cases go into each chair, in addition to the frame and legs made of powdercoated steel.  Founder Christopher Pett, notes that each chair prevents 2.4 kg of plastic from being landfilled, the design accommodates ease-of-disassembly for maintenance and recycling, and all parts are locally sourced, within the U.K.  In an example of what American companies could do with a similar initiative in place in the U.S., the PS cases are acquired and reprocessed under the guidelines of the European Commision’s Waste, Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, which states that all electronics manufacturers must take responsibility for retrieving their products at end-of-life.  The Reee Chair is ultimately the result of a discussion among Pli Design’s staff at the Eden Project suppliers conference in Cornwall, England, about how to effectively use high quality recycled plastic from discarded electronics.  Upon determining old SONY PlayStation®2 consoles as their material source, Pli partnered with Sprout Design, a sustainable design consultancy, to develop the chair.

Pli Design Ltd

WEEE Directive

The Eden Project

Michael Braungart Asks “Is sustainability boring?”

In a recent article in Abitare, Cradle-to-Cradle co-author Michael Braungart, calls on industrial designers, graphic designers, and architects, to take the mantle of “sustainability” and turn it on its head.  To in fact, be the leaders beyond all other professionals, who bring us back from the brink.  With a number of humorous and dramatic asides, he makes a straightforward argument that the notion of sustainability itself, is inadequate (in his words, “boring”), and leads to a dangerous sense that “being less bad” or “destroying a little less” is somehow enough to save the planet from relentless environmental degradation.  To Braungart, it’s clear that people in general, but designers in particular, have not done their “job”, yet many have recognized the many challenges we face, and are beginning to play a more direct role in creating products which don’t contain toxic components, off-gas, leech into the soil when thrown in a landfill, or contribute to air pollution when incinerated.  Indeed, we should heed Braungart’s insistence that “Design is the complete opposite of sustainability”, and that “we should celebrate being human beings and our creativity, which is far more important than sustainability.”  Clearly, with the sheer creativity that many designers bring to the table, they should embrace the possible, - albeit improbable at first - in the pursuit of producing bold solutions for making a better world.

MBDC

Cradle-to-Cradle