Trash Talk: Plastic Bag Gallery

The Photographers’ Gallery invited people to submit photographs of plastic bags spotted around London and elsewhere which can be viewed here.


[…]Reminding us of our ability to consume and dispose, this project provides the public with their own platform for visual expression and is part of the Gallery’s continued remit to encourage further audience participation and highlighting photography’s influence in everyday life.[…]

via GHAVA

DO: Inspiration

Lots of talk about getting up and doing more lately (shout to Leland's manifesto about taking action in planning). I think part of the magic potion is finding inspiration so compelling that the spirit moves you into action. So here are a few examples of innovation and invention that will will hopefully move you in that direction.

"INDEX: is a global non-profit network organization that focuses on Design to Improve Life – e.g. design that substantially improves important aspects of human life – worldwide."

Sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it? Last week, awards were given to designers who had made significant contributions to designing differently.

Of course our favorite computer made the cut.

And the Solar Bottle, an answer to unclean drinking water. After bottling, the water sits in the sun, and pathogens are destroyed by heat. Winning designers, Alberto Meda & Francisco Gomez Paz increased functionality and practicality by adding an aluminum side to increase reflection and a handle to make the bottle portable. Simple, but brilliant.

via creativity.

The Laundry is another example of devising practical solutions. It's a paper recycling system for small businesses in London. And it's easy easy easy. Put your paper on the sidewalk, someone will take it away, and then, voile! magically, 100% recycled paper will return in its place. It completes the loop, so now recycled products are integrated painlessly into business' operations. One small step down the path that can help acclimatize companies to alternative products/uses.

Trash Talk: Transparency

Derek Lerner at GHAVA Twittr'd me this interesting clip as it reminded him of the Trash Talk initiative (note to self...behind on photo posts, where's dat cord? Doh.).


On the same note, this link about transparent rubbish bins from PSFK gives me other food for thought around the urgency of making our trash more transparent if we are to spark a change in personal action. We, collectively and individually expend great efforts to hide and disguise trash. Since childhood, we have come to know trash only as something that goes down a magic tube and "away". We hide the smells, we hide it out back, we never have to face it full on and truly deal with it. So the pile builds under our figurative carpets.


Ambient Devices offers ingenius products that re-envision everyday data...in these examples - a desktop glow-orb that depicts real-time stock trends, or a wall meter that displays real-time energy consumption. How might this work in a trash can connotation? Tap our toilets and actually assess the damage we inflict? Tap our drains and confront the volumes we channel down the pipes?

More interesting is the Hive Minding potential that Frog Design's Trash Talk Initiative begins to reveal to me: toss up an idea (or a problem, aka a "brief") and invite bright minds to brew on the subject and blog insights and experiences.

Trash Talk: Wasted

Travel Trash Update. Again, I have fallen off the wagon due to travel and conferences. 3 hail marys and all may be forgiven, rite?

I am, however, increasingly conscious of avoiding needless paper plates and plastic bags. Ever notice how everyone wants to give you plastic bags for any and everything? And those dumb stirrers at the coffee condiments table.
Airplanes, don't separate out the cans and organic compost. What's up with that NWA?
Airports, not a recycle bin in the whole complex.
Hotel events and luncheons...hotel rooms...no assistance for this reforming wastemaker.

On a related note - I now realize that I love my Escape Hybrid. More specifically, I love the "score" meters in-dash that show me just how much MPG I am saving this moment when I drive slowly enough to remain in the "green" (aka electric mode). Staying steady in the green racks me up the savings "points". Driving speedy and erratically shows me the consequences immediately. And I stop, because seeing 20 MPG is a bummer. However, seeing that I am racking up 30-40 MPG makes me feel good. These green meters in my dashboard compel me to change my driving habits and rack up more MPGs. These point meters remind me of a video game score, and moreso provide me the perception of "progress". And reward. I am compelled to beat my driving score from last time, and top my all-time-high MPG score. I realize this is probably not the intention of the green designers at Ford.


I'd like my trash can to note my scores, too. Why can't the cans tell me just how toxic (or not) my trash currently is? I'd like my garbage can to function better and tell me how well I am progressing at this very moment, every moment.


Flickr compiles

Trash Talk: Aki Update

Theater, Travel and Tradeshow trash edition.

Took the wifee to Spamalot! on Saturday and decided to leave the trash in the car (hey, I had a good excuse!). The attendent makes you trash your cups before entering to be seated (whew!). Theaters have lots of useless plastic cups forced upon you even though you're only ordering an Orangina which already is in a perfectly useable bottle. I guess the plastic cup is somehow more chic than the bottle?


Travel creates loads of useless trash to be avoided, from the half-eaten sandwich that you knew would taste nasty yet still purchased anyway to the double layers of bathroom paper towels ("I ain't touchin' nuthin' in here!") to the bottles and tickets and countless little slips of paper. Interestingly, for all the containers proffered, DAMN FEW AIRPORT CONTAINERS ARE ACTUALLY CONDUCIVE TO STREAMLINED TRAVEL! Everything is damned bulky and chunktified (yes, a made-up word) requiring great pockets to keep it all together.
Was at FoodSmarts Conference in Chicago for past 2 days..additional photo forthcoming. I admit, I did a bit of cheating these 2 days. Between the laptop and the bags of samples and brochures and camera and notes and miles of walking the floor - I let some of the trash go (like the half-eaten turkey sandwich and some Red Bull cans and some food sample cups and plates). Tradeshows, with all their lame pens and lights and trinkets and mints and flyers and brochures are probably the posterchild for wasteful disposability. Everything you're handed is headed to the trash. Best to just not take most of the crap, maybe exhibitors will quit buying them and provide more engaging and memorable experiences to draw crowds in lieu of trash trinkets.

And another thing: NOT ONE DAMN RECYCLE BIN ANYWHERE IN THE AIRPORT OR CONVENTION HALL. Can a wasteful consumer get any help on trying to reform?

Needless to say, my actual trash generation at the tradeshow is a bit more than the photos depict. Minus 10 points on cheating. Doh!

And yes, I have added a man-bag to keep my trash ever so stylish.

One napkin can, indeed, last all damn day (especially when you don't want to haul napkin trash all day). Perhaps I may invest in a handkerchief (gramps was onto something there).

Flickr compiles

Trash Talk: Aki Day 01

Met Ashley Menger at Frog Design a few days ago and was introduced to their Trash Talk Initiative.

As an attempt to research our (dis)connections with the trash we create (and hopefully evolve some solutions), Trash Talkers commit to a few weeks of living with the trash they create daily. Common wisdom insists that it takes 3 weeks to actually change human behaviour so I will take on the Trash Talk challenge for 21 days and keep my daily trash with me everywhere I go.

Here's my first day's trash...

Direct mail did me in. 1 week of direct mail at that. Travel Tomorrow. Tickets to the theater tonight...lemme think about how I'm gonna get my trash in the show. Doh!

Pollution Penance: Adventure Ecology Floods Second Life

I'm late to this, but seems organization Adventure Ecology (in conjunction with Ogilvy UK) subjected London, Amsterdam, Ibiza, Tokyo and other regions in Second Life to a sudden flash flood which thankfully lasted for only a few hours. The flooding of the areas was done to show the financial, and more importantly, environmental implications of global warming. David de Rothschild, a London-based environmentalist and founder of Adventure Ecology, spoke about the event saying that "Our message was, you may have a second life, but [you still need to] offset your second life in real life."


via MMORPG Blog and GreenNormal"

Pollution Pennance:Batman Drives Green

Even Batman has eco-friendly intentions. Seems that gigantic jumping Batmobile-thing that he used in the last movie is just getting too expensive to drive, even for the super rich Bruce Wayne. So, meet his new ride: The Bat-Pod!

via AutoBlogGreen

Pollution Penance: "Column B"

glumbert.com - The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See