Task 2b Recycling - Sustainable Consumption

The animations The Story of Bottled Water and Life Psychle-ology are two very clever videos which target the emotions of consumers to try and make a change in consumer habbits .

In the case of Psychle-ology the writer has used personification to given a persona/human features to things such a mobile phone. The affect of this is it make the video more personal and sparks an emotional response in the viewer. This may be empathy for the poor discarded product or disgust that its user has discarded a perfectly functional item. Regardless of the response the video highlights in a clear and concise manner that waist-fullness is a huge issue in the consumer goods industry and designers need to be aware of this. As a result designers can be more conscious of the post consumer stages of a product life-cycle. Thus being able to design products which either extend the life cycle or make recycling into new items more achievable.

Similarly The Story of Bottled Water brings the issue of consumer behavior to light. This is that companies are "manufacturing" demand for their products. In the case of bottled water this is as people are becoming aware of the monetary and environmental cost as well as the fact that bottle water is frequently subpar with regular tap water. Thus by promoting "boutique" water they have given a new life to the humble bottle of water. The video also highlight that while many water bottles are reused that are not being recycled but rather down-cycled. Consequently post down-cycling the material is simply discarded rather than being continuously recycled.

What these two videos are trying to convey is that brands are making product are that are not entirely conscious of the environment and as a result we as consumers need to be aware of this and consume with caution and moderation and designers need to strive for more ethical business practices.

Task 2a - Recycling

This is a response to the videos created by Duales System Seutschland (DSD) entitled Giving Packaging a New Life. They can be seen below.

These videos are nothing new, they don't provide any information that even a poorly informed designed shouldn't know already other than some interesting statistics and processes. Frankly this is not particularly riveting stuff. However, it forces one to consider the immense quantity of packaging that is discarded globally. This brings to the spotlight that perhaps the answer is not to focus on devising better and more economical ways of recycling. Rather we need to embed a sense of obligation in the designer to design packaging that reduces materials and enables easy recycling. Although there is a major roadblock. The problem is that it starts with the consumer whose expectations for everything to come with an unnecessarily "fancy" packaging which is really an ill allocation of resources.

So perhaps there needs to be a reprogram of the consumer. Where the concept of what is good packaging and what is bad packaging will be altered. Hence less extravagant/wasteful packaging will be perceived as superior and in fact favoured by the consumer.

Perhaps we should just blame marketing? I'm not sure...?

Task 1 - Ecological Footprint

How many earth do I need to support my consumption? Apparently 5.41 according to the Ecological Footprint Centre for a Sustainable Economy. Check them out at www.myfootprint.org

Honestly I haven't a clue what this statistical stuff means. Is the world doomed, or maybe we just need some more of them? Who really knows for sure? Probably no one. However, in the meantime what should we do? I don't know i'm not that smart! Maybe lets try to reduce our footprint. Simple enough right?