December 2007 | Choice News
Saving the Earth by Design
Before you throw out that unusable iPod or beer can, think about how else it could be used — it might be your next wallet or bullet light. Sound farfetched? It’s not, and that’s exactly the message a few creative students at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), in Pittsburgh, PA, hope to spread as part of their new class project.
The students in professor Melissa Cicozi’s Design and Social Change class at CMU are looking into how product design can affect our culture and the environment this semester. The class has been busy designing posters to help highlight the use of eco-friendly products, showing how recycling can help the Earth, and remaking items destined for the trash into usable products.
“How might you encourage people to use waste, and/or consume less? Invent a creative way to reuse something, or invent a device or object that uses waste in a meaningful way,” says Cicozi about the project.
One example is the poster created by Annie Fei Teng which shows a woman wearing pants five sizes too big and says, “I lost 92 pounds in just two weeks. You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide a year by recycling half of the waste your household generates.”
Another poster created by Beverly Hsu, has a clever take on the new energy efficient light bulbs in four squares. The first square is all black and reads, “No Idea.” The second square depicts a lit candle and says, “Some idea.” The third square is a picture of a light bulb and says, “Better Idea,” and the fourth square shows a new energy-efficient light bulb with the caption, “Brightest Idea.”
Some of the trash remade into usable items include an old record turned into a bowl, an unusable iPod made into a wallet and a bullet light made from old Coors Light beer cans. One student, Andrea Barber, even made old jeans into iPod covers.
Saving the Earth and stopping global warming may take some time to accomplish, but Cicozi and her CMU students are working to make it happen — one poster, record bowl and iPod at a time.
For more information, visit design.cmu.edu.
— Liz Henschel
![[Send]](http://consciouschoice.com/sendlink/send.gif){kind=small}
Recommend this page to a friend
Top Ten pages recommended to friends:
