Bad Time to Zag When Everyone's Zigging

Two new car commercials that tell me the industry doesn't get it.

1. Mitsubishi L200 "for people who love the country"
uuuh. it's a truck. I am guessing there are about three people in the UK who actually need to drive around the countryside in a gas guzzling (aka Earth killing) vehicle of this size.

via pirate geek

2. Kia "save the greenbacks"
Nothing quite like mocking our fragile environmental situation to sell a few cars.

See the spot on Transbuddha

Now, I know I'm going a little Al Gore here, but seriously, A) as an industry, we can play a role in influencing public opinion (by not letting work like this get out the door) and B) car companies are already in hot water. Why risk exacerbation? And okay, C) I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and it's freaking me out.

I'm waiting for a model with organic fabric seats, cupholders made of recycled plastic and maybe even electronics powered by a solar panel on the roof. And no, not in a hybrid SUV.

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.

What is "sorry" enough?

Mattel hit a rough patch. Its toys are being pulled from shelves left and right, and, maybe worse yet, for a variety of problems, from choking hazards to lead paint.

The tide started with a recall two weeks ago, and, as AdAge points out, Mattel decided to rely on the news media to deploy its heartfelt apologies. Then, more recalls and full page ads in the WSJ, NYT, and USA Today. Mattel is sorry and now it’s paying to tell you so. And if you happen to be on the website, the company put together a video address from Chairman-CEO Bob Eckert.

I have been thinking about managing disaster more than usual lately with the local response to our city’s bridge collapse. I walked around in the on a neighboring bridge the day 35W fell and was surrounded by thousands of other people who just couldn’t stay in their living rooms any longer, who needed to get out and feel like there were still other people out there. After disaster, people want to gather and feel comforted by community.

Later that night, police shut the walking bridge. It stayed closed for a week. The bridge that connects the city, where tourists take photos of our skyline and new theater, a bridge on countless runners’ and bikers’ daily routes. The city didn’t realize that, when it shut down the bridge, it did more than further complicate transportation. It closed a gathering place for healing. Where people could have left flowers or flags or notes or just paused for a minute to reflect on the intensity of what happened. There was no place for us to socialize what happened, to make sense of it and figure it into our reality.

Is Mattel’s reaction to endangering millions of people’s kids was not only recycled straight from the handbook of “how to save face when you've f-ed up,” but it’s one-way in a time when we are communal. Mattel needs its bridge, and if it does things right, it can own “recuperation.” Set up a smartly-played online community, start a news feed updating the percentage of tainted product that are reeled in, solicit input from moms and dads of places they’ve seen the recalled products. Give people a chance to feel like they can DO something.

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!

Burger? Salad? Maybe the Sustainably Raised Chicken?

I read a few months ago an editorial from Gourmet magazine’s editor in chief, Ruth Reichl, wherein she discussed the idea of “Occasional Vegitarianism.” “Isn’t it time we realized that eating vegetarian meals is neither penance nor virtue, but simply another mealtime option?”, she asks. As part of her case, Reichl pointed out that we now consume more meat than any other society in history, and that our grazing and feed production uses 30% of the surface of the planet.




Makes me wonder if she’s correct in her assumption that it’s not a penance nor virtue to consume wisely. It’s becoming just duty. This week, the NYT reported on the popularity of certain varieties of fish and its impact on sushi consumption; US consumers believe salmon and tuna rolls are the end all be all, and the rise in sushi’s popularity has placed a strain on these species. The article suggests that sushi lovers expand their orders into a wider range of sushi options.

When Americans sit down at a restaurant—from the sushi bar to Applebee’s—their method of evaluating menu choices has changed. We have become more conscientious of what we want to eat versus what we should be eating. We saw it in the tiny salad selection growing into an array of main dish options for patrons interested in a tasty dining experience without three days’ worth of fat and calories. Menus developed further with the proliferation of a rainbow of symbols to tell us exactly what made food healthy—low fat, low carbs, lactose-free. Today, as demonstrated in the Times, Americans are becoming more aware of their food’s origins—an organic farm locally grown, or from a sustainable resource? So should we be thinking one step beyond ourselves when we sit down at the diner, to consider what we should be consuming? And should restaurants be pushing this agenda by clearly labeling menus with a revised edition of the symbols to help customers make the right choice?

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

Conscious Consumption:Recycle Bank Rewards You for Recycling

Doin' good sometimes needs incentive. How 'bout points for buying stuff?

"The initial launch in the West Oak Lane and Chestnut Hill neighborhoods of Philadelphia included 2,500 households where the recycling rates were 7% and 30% respectively. Within two months, recycling rates had doubled in both neighborhoods. Additionally, participation rates in both neighborhoods rose to 90%. These improvements and statistics remain the standard for RecycleBank in that typically recycling rates rise to 40% and participation in the RecycleBank program hovers around the 90% range."

Recycle Bank website, news video, more info

Conscious Consumption:Design Can Change

"Sustainability and good design do not have to be mutually exclusive." Designers may examine how practices impact the environment here.


via Treehugger and Greennormal

Pollution Penance:Yahoo Green

Yahoo launched a campaign called, Be a Better Planet, which aims to find the greenest city in America and provide that city with a fleet of hybrid taxis. The promo ties in Yahoo services like Yahoo Answers, and they’re launching a site called Yahoo Green, which aims to be a hub for all things green.

*Though at this moment, I see this Green search engine as little more than a shell - the searches don't net you anything organized by "green" per se. Some of this may be a bit of bandwagoneering, while adding little unique value. This is a green promotion (cute), whereas the intuitive killer app would be a truly Green Search Engine (as the name implies!). Whattup with dat, Yahoo?


via Mashable

Eco Future: Two airline approaches

Two press releases last week from the airline industry, one from Delta and one from Virgin Airlines. Both announce changed business practices to be more green, but the messages the announcements sent were quite different.

Virgin signed a multi billion dollar promise to buy 15 of Boeing’s fuel-efficient 787s, and announced it intends to fly the world’s first bio-fueled commercial airplane.

Delta now offers fliers the option to make a $10 donation per ticket purchase to The Conservation Fund to help offset their carbon footprint (which goes up significantly with flying).

As someone who is evermore environmentally conscientious, I think of solutions in two frames: correcting the now and protecting the future. Virgin is clearly taking strides toward both, and in significant ways. But the more I thought about it, Delta is doing neither—test this out: carbon offsetting is simply allowing us to sustain our current habits--instead of correcting the damaging action.

It gets back to the issue highlighted in Mya Frazier’s cautionary AdAge article this week. If you’re going green, make sure it’s for real. My opinion is that everyone (not ‘if’) should be going green, but companies’ fear of public backlash when they don’t go far enough-- being called out as “greenwashing”—is legitimate.

And for that reason, there’s a lot of opportunity in the “protecting the future” variety of solutions. It’s creating a vision. Virgin has made awesome announcements about its intent for the future, and it’s basking in goodwill now.