Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
This is a good concept, because it helps to save the environment, as well as saving you money.
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Reduce
Companies are being challenged to reduce the amount of packaging they use. More often that not, its not needed, and is just used to make a product look bigger. Think about how easter egg boxes have shrunk in the past few years. And the coffee bean advert where they have tried no packaging at all!
It has been shown in the news recently that food sell-by dates are to be scrapped to try to reduce the £12bn worth of food the UK wastes each year. Story from bbc news:
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Continue reading the main story
It has been shown in the news recently that food sell-by dates are to be scrapped to try to reduce the £12bn worth of food the UK wastes each year. Story from bbc news:
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Scrap food sell-by dates, government urges manufacturers
Continue reading the main story
Click to play
Sell-by dates should be removed from food packaging to help cut waste and save shoppers money, ministers say.
The UK throws away about £12bn of edible food each year and critics say confusing packaging is partly to blame.
New government advice says firms should include only use-by or best-before dates and remove sell-by and display-until labels relating to stock control.
The British Retail Consortium said a better approach would be to educate people on what the dates mean.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says five million tonnes of edible food is discarded by UK households annually - the equivalent of £680 for a household with children.
Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said confusion over food labelling was responsible for an estimated £750m of the £12bn edible-food wastage each year.
'Not relevant'
"We want to end the food labelling confusion and make it clear once and for all when food is good and safe to eat," she said.
She wants confusing stock rotation information - such as sell-by dates - removed from packaging altogether.
"There are products that have several dates on them; use by, best before. Sometimes it says 'display until', which is not relevant at all by the time it's sitting in your fridge," Ms Spelman told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"So I can understand when people - particularly young people starting out with shopping - look at these dates and say 'I'm not sure about this; better throw it away'."
Compliance with the new guidance is not required by law, although Defra says businesses are legally bound to label food with either a use-by or best-before date.
Its guidance says foods likely to require a use-by date - meaning they could become dangerous to eat - include soft cheese, ready-prepared meals and smoked fish.
Foods likely to require only a best-before date - meaning they may lose quality but are still safe to consume - include biscuits, jams, pickles, crisps and tinned foods.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is backing the new advice."We always emphasise that use-by dates are the most important, as these relate to food safety," said its head of hygiene and microbiology, Liz
Redmond.
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Reuse
Don't just throw things out when you're done with them, see if you can reuse them, and if you can't, the chances are someone else can. For example, unwanted clothes could be given to a charity shop.
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Recycle
This is probably the part of this concept that you can do the most about. Recycling isn't just about recycling your rubbish, its so much more. If you're thinking of throwing something away, stop and think how it could be 'up cycled'. I'm quite crafty so this appeals to me.
UK recycling statistics [uk-energy-saving.com]
UK recycling statistics [uk-energy-saving.com]
- The proportion of our household waste which is being recycled is increasing.
- In 2009/10 household recycling rates were at 39.7%.
- Over 9.4 million tonnes of waste were sent for recycling or composting in 2009/10 compared to 9.1 million tonnes in 2008/09.
- 14.3 million tonnes of household waste was not recycled, composted or re-used in 2009/10, a decrease of 6.0 per cent from 2008/09.
These statistics show that recycling is on the up, but still there is so much more to be done.
Recycling Facts
- On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every seven weeks.
- Every UK household produces over one tonne of rubbish every year.
- Every eight months the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere.
- It is estimated that there are 90 million redundant mobile phones in the UK.
- Over Christmas as much as 83km² of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey.
- Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a colour TV for 15 minutes.
- Glass will not decompose in landfill but can be recycling without loss of purity.
- 70% less energy is required to recycle paper than making it from raw materials
- The energy saved by recycling one plastic bottle will power a 60W light bulb for six hours.
- Once an aluminium can is recycled it can be part of new can within six weeks.
- If all the aluminium cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 14 million fewer full dustbins each year.
- It takes just 25 two litre drink bottles to make one adult size fleece.
- 70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared with making it from raw materials.
Some of these interesting facts may be well known, whereas some may be quite shocking, but they all prove how beneficial recycling is to the environment.
Good concept
On the topic of things being 'good', I have been reading one of the books off the reading list: 'Good: an introduction to ethics in graphic design'.
"we should go beyond its artistic and functional merits and ask questions about it's 'goodness' in a wider social context" "is the design efficient in its use of materials and production techniques, and can it be disposed of or recycled without causing harm or involving great cost?"
"we should go beyond its artistic and functional merits and ask questions about it's 'goodness' in a wider social context" "is the design efficient in its use of materials and production techniques, and can it be disposed of or recycled without causing harm or involving great cost?"
Upcycling
Definitions:
'The process of taking something that would be thrown away and turning it into something useful'
'The process of taking something that would be thrown away and turning it into something useful'
'Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value.'
'The practice of taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something of greater use and value.'
Examples - Graphic design
Tea towels
My friend bought this interesting towel from Liberty in London, where an old tea towel has been brought to life with a new design screen printed on top.
My friend bought this interesting towel from Liberty in London, where an old tea towel has been brought to life with a new design screen printed on top.
Tickets - From D&AD New Blood exhibitor [harrysmithdesign.co.uk]
These tickets that I saw at New Blood are partly what inspired this project. So many train tickets must be wasted everyday as they have no use once the journey is over, but this is a great idea, to screen print over the ticket to turn it into a new ticket. This idea stood out after the exhibition from all the others as it looks good, but is good for the environment too.
These tickets that I saw at New Blood are partly what inspired this project. So many train tickets must be wasted everyday as they have no use once the journey is over, but this is a great idea, to screen print over the ticket to turn it into a new ticket. This idea stood out after the exhibition from all the others as it looks good, but is good for the environment too.
A similar graphic design project I found when researching "what is graphic design for?"
Graphic design is for promotion. These very modern type focused designs are to promote a traditional village green festival. The problem is that an event needs advertising but the organisers and designers wanted the promotion to be environmentally friendly in fitting with the event. To solve this problem, the designers used 100% recycled materials, including the t-shirts, which are old T's with the new logo printed over them. The potential audience are those in Southend-on-sea, but the new modern design of bold typography and simple imagery representing bunting will also draw in younger crowds as they are 'cool' designs. The audience will interact with the pieces by using them, visiting the event and then re-cycling the designs.
Decopatch - giving something a new life
This is a crafty way to up cycle anything. I made these old, plain photo frames into pretty decorations for my room by gluing them with special deco patch paper and glue.
This is a crafty way to up cycle anything. I made these old, plain photo frames into pretty decorations for my room by gluing them with special deco patch paper and glue.
Here are some more creative deco patch ideas I have found on the internet.
It makes you think why buy a new object, when you can just reuse your initial object by decorating it to look how you want! Its a cheaper, creative and more fun way of getting something new.
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From my experiences of living with other people, I know not everyone is as keen on recycling as I am. I was shocked to find that some places don't have recycling bins provided, so all rubbish in some places is waste. To get an idea of peoples opinions on recycling, I asked a few questions:
- Do you recycle? Yes [10] No [0]
- How regularly do you recycle? All the time [2] Most of the time [7] Rarely [1] Never [0]
- How bothered are you about your effect on the environment? Very [1] A little [6] Unconcerned [3]
It makes you think why buy a new object, when you can just reuse your initial object by decorating it to look how you want! Its a cheaper, creative and more fun way of getting something new.
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From my experiences of living with other people, I know not everyone is as keen on recycling as I am. I was shocked to find that some places don't have recycling bins provided, so all rubbish in some places is waste. To get an idea of peoples opinions on recycling, I asked a few questions:
- Do you recycle? Yes [10] No [0]
- How regularly do you recycle? All the time [2] Most of the time [7] Rarely [1] Never [0]
- How bothered are you about your effect on the environment? Very [1] A little [6] Unconcerned [3]
