How green is your design?
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 
I know that I am not by any means the first to raise this issue, nor will I be the last. But I do think that it is always a worthy topic for discussion. There are many areas of design where a greener solution could be chosen. The first and most obvious one for me is packaging design.
I was listening to the radio a few weeks ago and they were discussing the reason why a cucumber needs to be shrink wrapped in plastic.
The supermarket spokesperson gave these reasons:
a) We need to get the bar code on there for the cashier to scan.
b) It will stay fresh for 12 days in the fridge.
My response to this was who on earth wants to keep a cucumber for 12 days, it defeats the whole idea of eating FRESH food!! And if the supermarkets are insistent that the bar code needs to be on the vegetable then perhaps a sticker as shown below would be a better alternative?
I also felt the need to include this image of a single aubergine packed in plastic. What a ridiculous waste of resources, energy, land fill space etc. It is on a par with plastic trays displaying a couple of avocados or apples which are then wrapped again in plastic. Grrrrrrr!
Since the obvious solution of banning plastic packaging for food doesn’t look likely to happen anytime soon, why is biodegradable plastic not used more often? Well it’s down to the increased cost to produce it I guess, they wouldn’t want to eat into those gazillion pound profit margins.
Here is an example of a packaging manufacturer who use bio-plastics that are 100% biodegradable, with a low carbon footprint and are made from annually renewable plants:
London Bio Packaging Full marks to you!
I would also like to link to Noisy decent graphic’s blog on the subject who were the main influence for my blog. They have gone into much more detail, also raising the question of the involvement of the designers in the whole process of food packaging. A great read. 
Graphic design for print is another area that can be looked at. The print industry is the 5th largest manufacturing industry in the UK and has the 6th worst pollution record. It is a resource intensive industry that is mostly unsustainable. Print companies and Design agencies should at least be offering their clients print services that use recycled paper or paper from sustainable forests as a green alternative.
Anyway, this is a huge topic and I don’t want to rant on about it too much but I would be most interested to hear any of your opinions on this subject.
Toni
