Monday, March 21, 2011

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.

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