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REDUCE, REUSE, REDESIGN
Eco-friendly product packaging continues to grow
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Earth Day
may have been last week, but environmental issues are never far from
our minds. As kids, we learned the mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle." As
adults, we compost religiously and employ reusable shopping totes. Yet, coastlines are still shrinking and the only islands gaining any acreage are made of plastic and float in the middle of the Pacific.
It seems we're not the only ones disturbed by drifting garbage masses,
as some imaginative designers are rethinking and redesigning packaging
to reduce waste.
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Eco Coke Bottle:
One recent find convinces us that beverage companies are going to start thinking inside the box more than ever before. Andrew Kim,
a student at Detroit's College for Creative Studies, designed this
sleek box-shaped Coke bottle for a midterm project. Made from 100%
plant-based materials and reminiscent of something you'd find in a
Tokyo grocery store, Kim's redesign is stackable, as well as
collapsible, saving on space and shipping costs. His concept has
received significant attention from the design community and, should
Coca-Cola actually decide to snatch it up and put it into production,
we have a feeling other soda companies will be green with eco-envy.
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Boxed Water Is Better:
Milk, juice, and even wine come in cartons, but it was only recently that the company Boxed Water Is Better
decided to put water in them. Calling themselves "part sustainable
water company, part art project, part philanthropic project, and
completely curious," Boxed Water Is Better designed a carton made from
85% responsibly harvested trees - far more eco-friendly than typical
plastic bottles. In addition to being made from green materials, the
cartons are shipped flat to filling facilities, saving money and
energy. After consumers' thirst is quenched, cartons can be broken down
and recycled at Carton Council
facilities nationwide. Moreover, the company plans to donate 20% of its
profits to support clean water and forest conservation organizations.
We've already seen hipsters drinking water from wine botas,
so why not cartons?
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PUMA's Clever Little Bag:
For nearly two years, Puma and fuseproject
's
Yves Béhar have been rethinking the idea of the standard shoebox. Their
conclusion? Eliminate the box altogether. Now on display at the Design Museum
in London as part of a Sustainable Futures
exhibition, the athletic company's Clever Little Bag acts as both a
shoe container and a reusable bag that sneakerheads can use to tote
their new kicks home. Eliminating the shoebox reduces Puma's cardboard
use by 65%, while also saving paper, electricity, fuel and water
typically consumed during manufacturing - not to mention 275 tons of
plastic saved by nixing plastic shopping bags in favor of recycled
ones. The new packaging is part of PUMA's long-term sustainability
program called PUMA.Safe
and will appear in stores in 2011. You best start saving shoeboxes for
those future diorama projects now, because if this concept catches on,
they'll soon become a thing of the past.
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* References to products and services in trendcentral do not imply our endorsement, but rather are intended to provide objective insights into emerging trends and examples of those trends. trendcentral is published by The Intelligence Group, a trend research and consumer insights company focusing on youth culture. For more information on our services, or to subscribe to our syndicated Cassandra Report studies, please contact Noelle Weaver at 212-277-5244 or via email at nweaver@intelg.com.
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